When reading a novel would you stop every 20 pages and go online to watch a three-minute video based on that book just to see what happens next rather than reading it? Anthony Zuiker seems to think so.
According to USA Today:
Anthony Zuiker, creator of the hit TV series CSI and its two spinoffs, says his new multimedia “digi-novel” will launch a “revolution in publishing for the YouTube generation.”
Level 26: Dark Origins, to be published by Dutton Sept. 8, is the first in a series in which each book will be supplemented with 20 videos, or “cyber-bridges,” featuring actors playing characters from the novel.
The series, written with Duane Swierczynski, features a rogue investigator who hunts serial killers.
After every 20 pages or so, readers will be able to go online to watch a three-minute video. The videos are designed, Zuiker says, “to embellish the novel and drive readers to the next book.”
Zuiker, 40, brings TV experience to what he calls “a triple platform”: books, videos and an interactive fan website, designed by the creators of lonelygirl15, the popular teenage blogger who turned out to be fiction.
Even if it catches on, it hardly seems to be a threat to regular (and I hate to define them as such, because in the past we never had to) books at the moment.
Another report on “Variety” also tells us:
…Zuiker came up with the idea when he set out to write a crime novel and realized he had problems with the traditional format.
“I personally don’t have the attention economy to read a 250-page crime novel from start to finish,” he said. “I realized that the way I’d like to consume a novel is to be rewarded every couple of chapters by seeing something visual that enhances the narrative.”
Zuiker will write a 60-page outline for each book, then supervise a novelist who’ll turn it into a 100-chapter book. Zuiker will write and direct 20 “cyber-bridges,” the two-minute video segments that supplement the pages.
The footage “will drive the reader ferociously back to the book,” said Zuiker. “For instance, you’ll watch a live snuff film that figures in the plot, you’ll give the killer your phone number, and he’ll call you back, and you’ll see an analysis of photographic forensic evidence.”
Hmm…If you don’t have patience to read a 250-page novel then why bother at all? There is short fiction, novelettes and novellas. Flash? Or does it mean you have to turn the world upside down and invent something new where people don’t really have to read “as much”? Many of us don’t read enough as it is, especially the younger generation. It surprises me even more that it seems A. Zuiker would only have ”attention economy” to write a 60-page outline for the book and hire somebody else to do the rest.
It seems that as the technology advances and new ideas, new ways of reaching a consumer are thought of, the entertainment industry is struggling to keep up and with all the new directions opening up ahead it gets its feet tangled up. When I read about these “revolutionary” ways for publishing to find a new niche, a new medium to conduct itself through, I can’t stop thinking that there is just as much confusion still there.
Zuiker’s idea would have more appeal if you could read the book and watch the video on one device rather than having to get on your computer and log on to a website, and then go back to the book or join the online discussion. The ideal medium for this choice would be the Amazon’s Kindle or Sony Reader but neither can stream video (yet).
Living in the so ever expanding digital environment that is being continuously transformed by technology, I sure hope future generations won’t buy into this nonsense and lose their touch with reality. But the current trends speak for themselves: fewer kids read books, and more use the internet and play video games. I bet some text or twit more than they read in a given day. Wonders of the digital age…with this came the minimisation of everything – our technology and our language. The minimalistic approach of texting, twitting and e-mail has changed the way we communicate, the way we express ourselves. It has changed the way we read too. Everywhere we are surrounded by wires streaming not just a current of electrons but data, there is a continuous flood of invisible information being transmitted around us wirelessly. We are immersed in this digital environment and spend hours every day hooked up to machines that produce it, like slaves.