This was the ultimate reading experience: leaving one world and losing yourself in another. And as a young child, the idea that another world might even exist sent the imagination into overdrive.

Now with iOS devices – and the soon-to-launch tablets for children Archos and Fable – there is a new terrain in which these other worlds can be constructed.  Unlike the fictional world of Narnia, theirs is a fully immersive experience – somewhere to find and read stories, play games, do activities on or offline, watch videos, even interact with the characters or communicate with peers.

To date, one of the most succesful online worlds for children is Moshi Monsters. Aimed at 7-11 years, it’s more gaming, less story-based, although it has spawned a series of print books published by Penguin. Currently it has 60 million (that’s 60 MILLION) registered users with a new sign up every second. I met Michael Acton Smith – Mind Candy’s CEO, founder, and modern-day Willy Wonka – at this year’s Do Lectures.  The success of Moshi Monsters is well-documented. One reason for its popularity is that in the world of Moshi, your child is in charge. A stark contrast to normal life and constantly being told what to do, when and how. Not only that, there’s a 2-way conversation between Moshi and its users. Acton Smith told me that many of the ideas worked into the site come from their children’s blog.  Someone is actually listening to them.

So while places like Moshi, Poptropica and Club Penguin attract emergent readers with a degree of techy prowess – what about their younger siblings?

The default site for most parents is CBeebies. It’s a trusted advertising-free zone that delivers a rich mix of educational games, stories and activites by a gaggle of characters and presenters that your offspring is on first name terms with.

Now there’s a new kid on the block. This week marks the launch of a new virtual world for children aged 2-6+ years. And it is firmly rooted in books and storytelling.

Magic Town is produced by interactive learning company MindShapes.  As CEO David Begg says, ‘Magic Town is a ground-breaking way for parents and children to share story time. Our mission is to use storytelling to help children develop a lifelong passion for reading and learning.’

For a new kid, they’re already hanging out with some impressive people. Collaborations have been formed with established children’s book publishers including  Andersen Press, Egmont, Usborne, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, OUP, to license content for the site. In return, they receive a percentage of subscriptions. It’s an innovative model that, so far, publishers seem willing to explore. As a result Magic Town launches with some of our favourite characters in residence: Little Princess, Winnie the Witch, Elmer, and Poppy and Sam from as Usborne’s Farmyard Tales series.

At first glance Magic Town looks a bit like a poster for Camp Bestival. Colourful, bright, quirky, the welcoming landscape is dotted with individually-styled houses. One click on a house and you’re inside. Bright-eyed boy Max is there to greet you, tell you who lives there, and ask if you’d like to ‘read a book’ or ‘play a game’.

All books are digital and are read on-screen, either by parent or a narrator, using Mindshapes’ proprietary storytelling format, Livebook. As well as the well-known brands there will be ‘digital first’ titles by authors such as Janey Louise Jones and Ian Whybrow, and daily stories from zen-like story guru, Louis the Lion. Once Magic Town is established, this could be an incredible platform for new and lesser-known authors to find new readers, and vice-versa.

Magic Town uses gaming technology and a proprietory algorithm that will personalise your child’s experience and suggest new Livebooks based on previous choices. As David Begg says ‘Our strategy is to use gaming techniques to deliver a custom experience for each child. Every time children enter Magic Town they receive a new story tailored to their individual user profile. The more they read and play, the more their version of Magic Town grows.’

This is way more exciting and advanced than the Puffin Book Club that me and my brother belonged to as children (although you can’t beat a free badge and sticker).

So what is this land of books going to cost parents? Magic Town is free-to-access as are some stories, but to make it worthwhile you need to subscribe. One subscription, which covers up to four children, costs: £7.95/ €9.99/ $11.99 per month; for six months: £39.99/ €49.99/ $59.99, or one year: £49.99/ €59.99/ $74.99.  Not bad when you compare it to the cost of an individual book.

So with TV shows, game consoles, DVDs, ‘educational’ websites, smart, engaging book apps, and virtual worlds, all jostling for the small amount of downtime that children get outside school – what’s a parent to do?

Surely it becomes a question of quality screen time.  As Begg says, ‘Magic Town is a wholesome and engaging alternative to children’s TV and to games on computers and other devices’. Okay it doesn’t have the thrill of Super Mario Karts but for this demographic it is a friendly, welcoming, safe online environment for children to explore.  And in the process, discover some of our finest children’s books and authors.

Virtual worlds for children will continue to expand and new ones will appear – let’s not forget Pottermore and its dark world forming offline as we speak.  Magic Town is bringing something new – a place where children can lose themselves in a world of books and storytelling.  As they take their first steps on a digital journey that will ultimately lead to the land of social networking and Facebook, it’s a pretty nice place to start.

Magic Town

Take a peek here

We’re looking for someone who loves sniffing out exciting projects, has a passion for work that pushes the boundaries of creative disciplines, and is fascinated by the disruption of the traditional notions of literature. This is a role that would suit an enthusiastic and knowledgeable self-starter already working in the publishing and/or technology sectors.

We’re being deliberately brief in our job description to see who gets in touch but if you think you fit the bill then please contact editor@theliteraryplatform.com.

BrandConnect offers precise targeting that allows contextual relevance within Facebook games and is being used by Harlequin to reach girls interested in the paranormal. It identifies female gamers aged 13 – 24 to show the YouTube videos within Facebook games.

As well as driving awareness to the target audience, BrandConnect directs people to the point of purchase at Amazon to increase sales and also drives Facebook ‘Likes’ on The Immortal Rules Facebook page.

The book is the first in the Blood of Eden series and is set to be an international hit following the success of Julie Kagawa’s previous Iron Fey series.

According to Claudia Symons, Brand Manager for MIRA INK, “What SupersonicAds offer is a great way for us to reach an audience that we might otherwise find quite difficult to target directly. The BrandConnect product offers us a real chance to engage with this community and it goes beyond just pushing the video views.”

SupersonicAds MD, Gil Shoham, stated “We are delighted to see a publisher starting to use BrandConnect to engage with their target audience in this way. The way BrandConnect identifies relevant groups greatly increases the clickthrough to point of sale while helping build digital communities. This is something we expect to see many more people turn to as it becomes a standard tool for building support around new book launches, as it is currently with film and DVD releases.”

The project will be overseen by Tim Cooper, Digital & Marketing Director at Harlequin.

More about SupersonicAds

SCAMP2012 is going back to where it all begins: great minds, new ideas and serendipitous discovery and hopes to counter the typical industry conference. Filled with talks, experiments, interactive activities and collaborative formats from 20+ of the UK’s most interesting creative thinkers, makers and doers, the day will runs from 9am  – 6pm, with a celebratory rooftop BBQ afterwards.

Recognising that conferences too often feature just 20% female speakers, or fewer, SCAMP2012 has turned the ratio on its head with a dazzling list of speakers, performers and thinkers, that just happens to be more female than male.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Anna Rafferty, MD of Penguin Digital
• Clare Reddington, resident at Pervasive Media Studio
• Dana Al-Salem, founder of Fanshake music community network
• Dave Birss, host of the Future of Advertising podcast
• Jo Hemmings, celebrity psychologist
• Katie Bell, commercial directory for Stardoll
• Liri Andersson, co-founder of advertising consultancy this fluid world
• Mel Exon, MD of BBH Labs
• Nicole Yershon, Director of Innovation at Ogilvy
• Pat Cadigan, sci-fi and non-fiction author
• Salena Godden, poet, performer and writer
• Katie Harris & Adil Abrar, founders of The Amazings
• Nange Magro, pioneer of mind-controlled fashion

SCAMP2012 is a SheSays event sponsored by Getty Images, Google Campus and Central Working. It’s open to men and women from across the creative, media and communication spaces. Tickets are £120 and press passes are available.

SheSays is the only global creative network for women. It’s an award-winning organisation that runs free mentorship and events to women in the creative and marketing industries, plus courses, awards, career management and a collaborative platform called Shout. SheSays was founded by Alessandra Lariu and Laura Jordan Bambach and is now active in 15 cities worldwide.

Conference details: http://pinterest.com/scampconference/

Tickets: http://scampconference2012london.eventbrite.com/

Which is exactly why, Salon- London is sliding east.  Showing out as the early evening part of ‘Identity Day’ on the 25^th May, it will take an irreverent look at our digital world.  Margaret Heffernan examines the code itself, whether its masculine structure actually inhibits our identities on line, Simon Warren, the photo tutor enables us to make ourselves and our lives look loads better on line, and Kerry Daynes will help us answer the question our digital lives are making us ask ourselves, ‘but enough about me, am I a narcissist?’

Video trail is here: http://vimeo.com/41836384

When: 25th May Time: 12.30pm till late

Where: The Venue @ Shoreditch Village: 186 Shoreditch High Street LONDON E1 6HU (Map)

And because you are super special…

Here is the hyperlink to the VIP ticket sign up: identity-ds2012.eventbrite.com/

To the event: digitalshoreditch.com/identity

Tweet us for extra cake on the day! Mention @digishoreditch and #DS12 #IDENTITY

It uses the latest web technology, including HTML5 and CSS 3, and features an interactive timeline that can be filtered to focus on her biography, Harry Potter or her forthcoming book, The Casual Vacancy. JKRowling.com is a far cry from the sparse selection of blogs and basic pages that would have passed for an author website 10 or so years ago, and a quantum leap from the days when a carefully worded bio on the inside of a book jacket was the only information that a reader could glean about an author.

As the best-known author in the world, creating a site to act as a hub for all things Rowling presents some fairly unique challenges. First, there is the fact that it must have the capacity to manage the exceedingly high traffic generated by her considerable fanbase. As this fanbase also happens to span a wide spectrum both in terms of location and user habits, the site has to be viewable across multiple platforms (e.g. iPad touchscreen and a bespoke mobile site), with all of the content available in six languages: English, Italian, Spanish, French, German and Japanese.

But why do authors need websites, especially in the age of social media? What purpose do they serve, and what do readers expect from them?

The answer to these questions varies according to the author and their following, but the most obvious purpose is to be a one stop shop for info about the author, and to house their portfolio of past, present and forthcoming work in one place. Another and potentially more important aim, is to act as the face of the author and their ‘brand’ to the world. The author URL thus becomes a digital business card, a small addition to every twitter profile, article or interview that says “find out more about me”.

As both a book and a web geek, I would say that a good author website is supplemented by Facebook and Twitter rather than replaced by them. These platforms offer writers the chance to interact directly with their fans, and raise awareness of their work, but by their very nature Facebook and Twitter are a catalogue of the comments, perceptions, thoughts and opinions of others, rather than the message that the writer themselves wants to communicate.

In this age of self-branding, a dedicated website allows writers to craft the experience for visitors, presenting themselves and their work as they see fit. If regularly updated and created with a view to good SEO, then this official website should be one of the top results in google, which allows the author to decide what information is highlighted to those that are interested in their work. They can flag events, provide links to buy existing work and crucially, start the marketing process for a book before it’s even finished.

Other benefits include the ability to build up a personal subscriber list of people that actively want to be kept up to date, a community that have bought into the author’s work, and can be used to float story ideas, get feedback (publicly or privately), test book jackets, launch discussions, and highlight current projects and events.

The least that a reader will expect when visiting an author’s website are details of the full range of their work, ideally with jackets and links to buy. An About Me section which tells them a little bit more about the person behind the books, a contact form/email address, links to the author’s social media channels.
Additional content and creative touches depend on the author. Writers come in many guises, from the types that scribble away in private, those that blog prolifically about their field of expertise, and those that offer readers a window into their daily lives with regular diary entries. As a reader, my favourite author websites are the ones that are a reflection of the author’s personality, Amy Krause Rosenthal’s being a perfect example. It’s light, fun, floaty and completely in line with the image that I have of her as a writer. It also manages to feel personal and engaging, something which Patrick Neate has nailed also. The site of writer, performer and filmmaker Miranda July combines information on her various endeavours with snippets of video, images and commentary, while Chuck Palahniuk offers a cult fan experience rich in content and news.

It is difficult to tell whether visitors to author sites are interested in the person or the book. These websites blur the line between the brand, the product and the individual, and that is what makes them so interesting. Established and new writers alike, are increasingly adopting an approach which sees them using social media channels and official websites in tandem to offer a cohesive online presence.

Both events are being co-ordinated by Jerome Fletcher , Associate Professor of Performance Writing at University College Falmouth, Award Leader for the MA in Performance Writing offered by University College Falmouth in partnership with Arnolfini in Bristol, a Principal Investigator in Electronic Literature as a Model for Creativity in Practice (ELMCIP), a collaborative research project funded by Humanities in the European Research Area, and author of seven print books, and countless artist’s books, digital and experimental texts, collaborations and performances.

The first event 3-4 May 2012 will be an ELMCIP seminar on Digital Textuality with/in Performance http://elmcip.net/event/elmcip-seminar-digital-textuality-within-performance. Participants attending this seminar will investigate the relationship between e-literature/digital text and performance. International speakers and practitioners and members of the ELMCIP project will discuss the function and understanding of performativity and its relationship to digital literature through a series of papers, presentations and practical engagements. The first day of the seminar will be devoted to papers and panel discussions by leading European academics in the field of electronic literature and performance. The second day will break from the traditional seminar model by focusing on artists presentations and works-in-progress. The first morning session will feature presentations by Martin Reiser, Helen Varley Jamieson, and New Media Writing Prize winner Christine Wilks. The rest of the day will be dedicated to workshop-style presentations of works in progress by practitioners who have been commissioned to create new works for the final ELMCIP conference and exhibition Remediating the Social http://elmcip.net/conference , to be held in Edinburgh in November 2012.

These sessions led by Annie Abrahams, cris cheek, Joerg Piringer, Donna Leishman, and me, J.R. Carpenter, will enlist hands-on input and offer insight into some of the background  rationale and development processes involved in creating, performing, conceptualizing, and contextualizing hybrid digital literary performance works.

The seminar will lead directly into Performance Writing Weekend 4-6 May 2012. Pioneered at Dartington College of Art in the mid-1990s, Performance Writing is a set of cross-artform writing practices exploring the boundaries and intersections between different forms and media, and engaging with new possibilities and technologies for the production and dissemination of writing in the 21st century. The Performance Writing Weekend will comprise performances, readings, a workshop on Writing & Mapping, ‘events on the plinth’, an exhibition and discussions about multi- and inter-medial writing. Of particular interest to The Literary Platform readers, Performance Writing Weekend will consider how, as the printed book comes under threat, new writing will be made, displayed and talked about, with discussion on small press and experimental writing, digital dramaturgy, the future of multi-media writing…

Authors of digital literature presenting works-in-progress at an academic conference held in a major European art and performance space? Award-winning novelist Kate Pullinger and Dreaming Methods writer/programmer Andy Campbell discussing collaboration, writing and the relationship between page and screen? Poet/programmer Joerg Piringer discussing the performance of code? Multi-instrumentalist David Coulter performing short improvisations between readings? Really, what more could an off the page, off the screen, and off the wall, digital, visual, and performance writing type wish for?

Featured Events:

PERFORMANCE: IN THE THEATER

Friday: 6:30-8. Free, but booking is required.

Digital text and the Body – 5 International artist/writers will perform a series of live, multi-media, sonic and digital text works. Featuring Friday night performances by the afore mentioned Annie Abrahams, cris cheek, Joerg Piringer, Donna Leishman, and J.R. Carpenter

WORKSHOP: IN THE MEETING ROOM
Saturday: 10.00 − 5.00 & Sunday: 11.00 − 13.00

Writing & Mapping – This Performance Writing workshop examines the relationship between the mapping and space, memory, history, identity, the body and fiction.

Led by artist/writer Mel Thompson and writer/dancer Christos Polymenakos.

(£10. Maximum of 20 participants. Contact Arnolfini to sign up)

Event Programs:

ELMCIP Seminar – Digital Textuality with/in Performance – 3-4 May 2012

http://elmcip.net/event/elmcip-seminar-digital-textuality-within-performance

Performance Writing Weekend – 4-6 May 2012

http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/events/details/1325

Booking & Enquiries:

Arnolfini

T: +44 (0)117 9172300 / 01

E: boxoffice@arnolfini.org.uk

16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA

www.arnolfini.org.uk

Performance Writing on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/performancewriting

Our lovely judging panel – Stephen Fry, Bob Stein, Ranjit Dhaliwal (The Guardian) and animation duo Atyp have a tough job on their hands and are now considering the entries. We look forward to announcing the winner on Towel Day – 25th May at a special event in London.

You can view all the entries to our competition here.

The public has been voting for their favourite videos and this is the Top Ten Rated list today:

1         Eleanor Stokes
2         Johanna Aulen
3         Ting Li
4         Jacqui Ferns
5         Andy Little
6         Andrew Miller
7         Matt Tillman
8         Daphne Christoforou
9         Adrian Hurtado
10       G Edwards

The Most Viewed video Top Ten list today looks like this:

1         Eleanor Stokes
2         Mike Belgrave
3         Johanna Aulen
4         Kevin Nabity
5         Andrew Miller
6         Adam Poole, Becky Burst, Dan Roberts, Faye Wombwell and Chloe Brown
7         Daphne Christoforou
8         Ting Li
9         Jacqui Ferns
10       Jake Sonny Rowlinson

We’ll be posting a bit more information about each of our contestants in a special profile piece next week.

http://competition.theliteraryplatform.com/

Playing around with classics is never unanimously popular and as with film and television, there are difficulties to face when unpicking and re-stitching a book to fit a new form, but few people would argue a classic should not change in any way when shifting media. When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 its page count was slight; not even enough for a novella. She was persuaded to bulk it up to 75,000 words, proving even classics had to bend to the will of the market of their time.

Digital book projects have a clear advantage over film and television: being conversant in non-linear narrative.  To make the most of this advantage, publishers know they need to mix books with code, and are clearing the advance copies from the spare tables to make hot-desking space for people from software houses. Michael Bhaskar, Digital Publishing Director at Profile Books, realised early on that collaboration was essential for the success of the Frankenstein book app. For him, this meant working with people he liked – in this case, gaming start-up Inkle. The publisher was keen to create something digitally innovative, and Inkle wanted to bring non-linear storytelling to the tablet mainstream. Together they wanted to create an incredible monster mash-up of book and computer program.

David Morris was brought on as author and thought very carefully about which classic to choose: “It had to be something that people weren’t too precious about, one everyone knows, but no one is currently reading.”  He also chose to relocate the story to revolutionary France, believing Mary Shelley herself would have been convinced of the validity of such a setting if she had had the benefit of hindsight.

David brought to the Frankenstein project his extensive experience writing interactive gamebooks. “When I was looking for a structure for an ebook, I realised this same ‘choose your own’ structure could be used in a digital setting to lure the reader into the emotional heart of the story.” This is pushed to the maximum when later in the story the point of view shifts and the reader becomes the monster.

Being highly skilled at both coding and narrative, David was the ideal choice of writer to take the “choose your own” structure into a digital space. As he was writing the text, he coded in the options and how they play out through the book. His unique skillset allowed him to create something quite revolutionary. The main character learns from your choices, works out who you are from the decisions you make, and is directly influenced by your decisions, taking action depending on how much he likes you. “Each time you interact with Victor Frankenstein in the story, the system keeps track of whether you’re giving him good advice, and how sympathetic you are to him. This allows Victor to adapt the way he reacts to you. If you earn his trust, he’s more likely to open up about his feelings, more likely to follow your suggestions. So, as you read the book, you’re also developing a relationship with the main character that will shape where the story goes.”  In this way the reader is implicated in the actions of Victor Frankenstein, making him either a crazed and ruthless manipulator or a man of science; it also influences his relationship with his fiancé, and their happiness. The plot can alter dramatically over two separate readings.

Frankenstein is a clever mix of technology and narrative – a beautiful creation for the tablet market and a bold attempt to wrestle with a classic and create a book that can work for a new audience brought up on digital games and interactive entertainment. Included in the Frankenstein app is the text of Mary Shelley’s original book, and having explored the interactive text so closely, the reader is left with a strong compulsion to read the classic that inspired it.

Available from Profile Books.

Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam will be demoing the app at a ‘Meet the Filmmakers‘ event introduced by Edith Bowman at the Apple Store on Regent Street, London at 6.30pm on Thursday 3rd May 2012. Live events accompanied by book signings have always been a staple for publishers when planning book publicity tours – but how do you replicate the book signing in the digital arena?

Heuristic has devised an interesting response to this oft-cited dilemma. In the Python Bytes app they’ve created a unique ‘Autograph’ feature that enables users to get their app signed by the Pythons and either save it to their photo library or share with a friend.

The App also contains new and exclusively recorded back-stories from John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, about the creation of the legendary sketches. Each sketch can be selected within the contents page to make a personalised show or can be randomly selected by shaking the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Each clip is preceded by one of three famous Python interstitials.

The Monty Python’s Flying Circus Python Bytes App is available for £1.99/ $2.99 from the App Store on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

To find out more about the Python’s ‘Meet the Filmmakers’ App Signing event at the Apple Store, Regent Street, London, visit http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/regentstreet.

Also by Heuristic Media Ltd – Cyclepedia App