HarperCollins UK recently announced their partnership with Fourth Story Media through an interactive online press release which has been picked up by The Bookseller and Pratham Books among others.

From Rachel Denwood, publishing director for HCUK’s children’s books, in The Bookseller:

“We’re delighted to join our US colleagues and 4th Story Media on this fantastic venture, the first of its kind for teenage girls. Each element is brilliantly conceived and delivered, but it was the quality of the books that got me so excited about this series. A pitch-perfect voice, a really strong and unusual story – plus cool, compelling characters: this is commercial teen fiction at its very best.”

For more information, view the interactive press release, and read the entire Bookseller article.

From the piece:

Perched in a cozy top floor of a classic dot-com-like space—Fourth Story is in a former sail-making factory on a short cobblestoned street at New York City’s South Street Seaport—Holton exuded excitement. Having recently left corporate America—she stepped down as president of Scholastic Trade in 2007—she’s now focused on her current job, a deep multimedia YA series called The Amanda Project that HarperCollins is launching this fall. After last year’s launch of The 39 Clues, Scholastic’s elaborate book-series-wrapped-in-a-contest-connected-to-a-Web-site-with-play-along-trading-cards, the Amanda Project is primed to be one of the most ambitious multimedia children’s series to date.

Read the whole story here!

“We should worry less about the delivery system and more about inculcating sustained reading in kids,” says Michele Rubin, an agent at Writers House. “Books are something they should see as enjoyable.” No one is arguing. In fact, one scenario that publishers are exploring to raise the fun quotient is mixed media à la Scholastic’s The 39 Clues (the series combines traditional books with online gaming and card collecting).

Patrick Carman’s newly released ghost mystery, Skeleton Creek (Scholastic, Feb.), offers a book and dedicated Web site with videos, while The Amanda Project by Stella Lennon (HarperCollins, Sept. 2009) is even more ambitious. This mystery series, aimed at girls ages 12–14, brings together traditional print with Web games, social networking, blogs, music and merchandise.

Read the whole article here.

• Frank Watching has a long rundown of the Lisa’s entire InCT presentation (in Dutch)
• Beat Internacional is featuring The Amanda Project trailer (in Catalan)
• InCT Magazine has a lengthy article about Lisa & the creation of Fourth Story Media (in Dutch)