There was an interesting announcement recently from Sterling, the book-publishing wing of Barnes & Noble. They will be launching a YA imprint called Splinter that will debut in January with at least one fantasy title, Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck, followed by four more books in the Tiger’s series.
New fantasy imprints are worth watching. Books published by a retailer are a trendy topic. But here’s what really raised my eyebrow:
“…all books will be released simultaneously in hardcover and e-book formats, and the print editions will be imbedded with TAG codes that will enable readers with smartphones to scan the codes to access Web-only material.”
The commitment to publish an e-book edition of every book simultaneously with the hardcover edition shows how legitimate the digital format has become. But what in blazes is a TAG code? Could they mean that those ugly QR Code blocks will be plastered throughout the book?
Obviously this is just a rough mock-up but it’s fun to imagine a book with web-content footnotes using a technology that’s becoming more and more common.
There could be links to interesting facts about the setting, video of the author explaining how a scene came to be, references to other books or movies that the reader might be interested in, pictures, recipes, or whatever. It would be just like an HTML-based book with hyperlinks!
We’re now seeing the first printed books that incorporate some of the capabilities of digital books. Only time will tell whether readers will come to expect hyperlinked content in all formats or if this is just the kind of weird experiment we see when people go a little nuts with a new technology.
Chris Eboch
Greg R. Fishbone
Nick
lindajoysingleton
Parker Peevyhouse
Joni Sensel
Well, go ahead and call me a curmudgeon, but I would like a book like this just about as much as I like to wade through all the crap on DVDs with “bonus” material… which is not at all. I think it’s great to have interesting supplemental material on a website somewhere, where fans can go get it if they want it. I personally don’t want my reading experience marred by having to read around tags or codes or whatever. It’s an intrusion into the unique intimacy between author’s mind, story, and reader’s mind. I don’t even like the distraction of reading copy online with hyperlinks.
But I know I’m a dying breed.
I love hearing about new imprints–each one is such a great opportunity, especially for those trying to break into the industry.
Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse
I’ve seen these tags in lots of magazine. I mostly ignore them since I don’t have a smartphone, but I think they’re interesting. I think it would be fun to be able to link to a deleted scene or chapter, or read extra backstory, in this way. And they seem easy enough to ignore if you don’t want to mess with them.
So I say–cool experiment. Just as long as it doesn’t end up being some kind of ad. How awful to read a book full of links to online ads!
Also–B&N publishes books? I did not know that.