Still on that Transmedia thing

Good thing I wasn't the only one thinking about Transmedia this week or I wouldn't have anything to post. As it happens the fine folks over at Publishing Perspectives were riding a similar wavelength and posted about How Transmedia Storytelling Becomes a Billion Dollar Business. It's an interesting story about the creation of Inanimate Alice, and it involves our very own Kate Pullinger.

They follow the story up with the question "Can Publishers Transform into Transmedia Storytellers?"

Publishing Perspectives is another one of those sites that people interested in finding out where publishing is, and where it is going, should pay attention to.

Defining Transmedia

The other day I posted about a conversation I had regarding a transmedia project and linked to a couple of interesting articles about Transmedia. Well some people asked, "What's transmedia?" So today I'm linking to a post that attempts to define transmedia by referring to the Producer's Guild of America's recent recognition of a transmedia category.

The Guild says:
"A Transmedia Narrative project must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing in the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms: Film, Television, Shortfilm, Broadband, Publishing , Comics, Animation, Mobile, DVD/Blu-Ray/CD-ROM... These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms."

Read the rest of the article for a discussion of the definition.

FREE BOOKS: Adam Lewis Schroeder Rocks

Thanks to the generosity of the fine folks at Douglas & McIntyre books we'll be giving away one copy each of IN THE FABLED EAST, by Adam Lewis Schroeder and DARWIN'S BASTARDS, edited by Zsuzsi Gartner (including a story by Adam Lewis Schroeder). Simply send us an email by Friday May 7th at noon, with the subject line ADAM LEWIS SCHROEDER ROCKS and you'll be entered to win. Please send your emails to info@mcdermidagency.com.

Thinking Transmedia

Met with a wonderful writer this morning and in addition to her project we started talking about transmedia. Not what I expected when I was going to the meeting but a lot of thought-provoking fun. So I started thinking about a couple of posts I'd read recently about transmedia and thought I'd share. Certainly transmedia isn't for every author, but if you envision your stories, or characters across a number of media platforms, thinking of it as a transmedia project from the outset is probably the best way to capitalize on what you are doing.

The first post is a very useful 5 Stage Development Process for Transmedia Projects, and links to another post on a transmedia business model.

Post number two tells us that Transmedia Requires a New Breed of Writers, Publishers.

While you are there check out the Digital Book World site. It's full of interesting material about how publishing in the 21st Century is developing.

MEN BEHAVING BADLY: And the winner is...

Kate Webb is the winner of our MEN BEHAVING BADLY contest! She will be receiving her books from HarperCollins Canada. Thanks to everyone for the great response. We had fun, hope you did too.
Come back next week to see what we'll give away then!

Why Publishers don't Market (well) And what Writers Need to do

Two great posts from Jane Friedman at Writer's Digest. The first tells you all you need to know in the title - Why Don't Publishers Market and Promote the Books they Publish? One of the questions I asked many times when I worked for publishers.

The second post is about what new gadgets like ereaders and the iPad mean for authors - and how they can be used. It also includes some great links to articles by some big thinkers on what these things will mean to authors and publishers of the future.

And check out Writer's Digest site. It's full of good things for writers.

FREE BOOKS: Men Behaving Badly

Thanks to the generosity of HarperCollins Canada we will be giving away one copy each of GIRL CRAZY by Russell Smith, THE WARHOL GANG by Peter Darbyshire and TOBY: A MAN by Todd Babiak. Simply send us an email by Friday April 23rd at noon, with the subject line MEN BEHAVING BADLY, and you'll be entered for a chance to win. Send your emails to info@mcdermidagency.com