Crowdsourcing a Game into a Novel

The Black Helix is an Alternate Reality Game in which players will become part of an unwritten story, as once it's complete it will be published as the first crowd sourced ARG fiction novel. Basically as the players take actions in the game, they're recorded into the story. The game just went live today, and there's a live component kicking in on March 14th. Is this the future of novels? Play a game and you're a writer? It's interactive and social-- but who's going to read it? I wonder if serious ARG gamers spend that much time reading; will the people who "wrote" it even buy it? (Hat tip Brand Flakes for Breakfast for the lead.)

Cute Bookmark Set

Here's a fun freebie bookmark set for bookworm in your life, created by Inomi.

Map of Borders in North America

Publishers Weekly has an interactive map that shows users which Borders are closing, and which are staying open-- as of now. Check it out here. The most interesting thing the summary map shows is that the majority of Borders stores are located in the North Eastern part of the country. (Due to the number and density of stores, the map shows many of them clustered in the red (largest number of stores) yellow (medium number of stores) and blue (smaller number of stores) circles you see to the left.)

Hey Lady, there's a cat stuck in your book

Check out the handmade peeking cat bookmarks by blacklilypie.

The Writing is on the Wall

Have no fear, this is not a tribute to Destiny's Child. Instead I'm referring to the Novel Poster Kickstarter project that aims to help you decorate your walls with scenes depicting great novels using only words from the books or illustrations of profound tweeps, only using their tweets. I'm not really understanding the leap from Charles Dickens to Kanye. I know there is already a company out there, Poster Text, doing the book to poster thing. Seems it would be more interesting for Novel Poster to stick to new journalism- beyond Twitter, what about tumblr streams or blog posts? I'm also curious how far back the tweets end up going in order to have enough to create the image. Are you planning on purchasing a poster?

Barnes & Noble Brand Refresh

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has hired Mullen, Boston, as its creative agency to work on refreshing its brand. Barnes & Noble is expected to make a $40 million investment in marketing, including a new look for stores. The effort is coming none to soon, as they're fighting tooth and nail (to enhance the Nook to compete with Amazon's Kindle) to stay relevant. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of creative ideas Mullen is able to cook up! What would you recommend? Full story on AdAge.

And the Huck Finn controversy continues

While Publisher NewSouth Books is attempting to get "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" back on library shelves and in classrooms by publishing a new version that removes the controversial "n-word" and replaces it with the word "slave," Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine believe it should be replaced with the word "robot"-- so they've set out to make their own. Why robots? They're "in" right now and statistically, people prefer robots to the word "n-word." But don't take my word for it, read more about their Kickstarter project that's already raised over $13,000 of their $6,000 goal.

Anyone else catch Seth Godin's latest move?

Seth Godin tries a clever variation on Groupon to gather signups for his newsletter. The more people that sign up, the lower his product's price. He'll lower the ebook price by $1 for every 5,000 people who sign up for his free online newsletter. So far it's down from $9.99 to $7.99. Are you signing up? Details here.

Have a spine

While there's a huge fuss over book covers, often book spines get neglected. That's where Fixabook comes in. They claim to offer a few pointers on how to get your spine in shape, amidst critique dedicated to creating eye-catching jackets. Check out their scoop on spines, copycat covers, or covers. Nice guest post featured there today by Seth Godin, of the Domino Project.

The Ice Book

Davy and Kristin McGuire created a magical pop-up book by projecting video recorded with a Canon 5D Mark II onto its pages, creating a 3D effect and placing miniature people into the scenes. Their website is down for the moment, but more about the project can be found there.

The Ice Book (HD) from Davy and Kristin McGuire on Vimeo.