All In with Multimedia for Books

Every book we are working on now has multimedia elements.

Among the textbooks for which we manage production, a large percentage of academic references are website links; that’s where the current, peer-reviewed, accurate sources live now. Most reference works and textbooks have supplemental websites where students go for the in-depth research, study questions, and video. After all, for today’s students, bound books are inefficient and old fashioned.

No longer do the visual arts and the printed word run is separate circles. For an upcoming title exploring the relationship of natural environment and culture, it helps that the author, Osprey Orielle Lake, is not only a renowned speaker at international conferences but also an accomplished sculptor of monuments in bronze. There is no limit to the ways her important words can be strengthened by art in all media, weaving history, ecology, culture, governance, and women’s leadership to map out an integrated approach to working in partnership with nature.

Another White Cloud Press frontlist title is a flagship for books converging with other media. Itself a marriage of lyrical words and art photography, Grace and Tranquility (July 2010, Eric Alan) is tied to a music CD of the same name by Gypsy Soul. The songs draw their lyrics from passages of the book, images in the book mirror the moods of the songs. Author and band are touring together, making a reading also a slideshow and concert. The gift market and booksellers are beginning to see the undoubted beauty of combining the book and CD as an attractive sales package.

A children’s storybook with whimsical drawings tells its story in more ways than ever before. Marketing for the book has to include video of the author reading the story. The author is active on Facebook and her illustrations are ideally suited for sharing across social media (copyright issues alert).

Even a fairly traditional travel guide just released depends on the associated website, which in turn is linked to all the websites of the featured wineries, weaving a true web. The website augments the print book with updates and news, as well as audio interviews by the author.

No author should be thinking only of words on paper ever again. Your story, your message, will be words on paper, in pixels, in audio, in video, in previously unimagined lively combinations that bring your readers right to your elbow as never before. Celebrate and maximize the possibilities.