BLA BLA

Is this a  story? Only if you participate in it. What kind of a story is it? That depends on you. Watch this interactive “film for computer” by Vincent Morisset. Try not to get lost in it, then come back here and tell me what you think.

A still featuring the main character in "Bla Bla,"
a new interactive film by Vincent Morriset.

As We Venture Into the Digital Forest

photo credit

We in the industry have been saying it for a while: the face of book publishing is changing. It’s looking more like a web page than a book cover. Consider the rise of electronic publishing houses like Booktrope, which is not a vanity press, and experimental sites that make community-building between readers and writers a new phase in the publishing process, such as Richard Nash’s still-in-beta-stages Red Lemonade. On the bright side, this market that started fragmenting two decades ago may have finally found a way to put books and the readers that want them together again, and they’re doing it more efficiently and cost-effectively. On the downside, are we drowning in an ocean of storytelling noise? How can one even decide what to read any more, with more choices than we can reasonably process? Some days even I, a book lover and reader, want to shut all my books, lock them in a room, and run away to silence; they are making as much noise as other media. I’m divided. What say you? As a reader are you happy with the shifting sands, or would you like to travel back in time?