Creativity

Don't you just love the sheer creative genius of some people? Nothing is more thrilling than encountering some absolutely astounding talent that can amaze and amuse you and transport you to a different world. I'm talking about fiction. One such talent, which I'm enjoying again at the moment, is Jasper Fforde. And his world of jurisfiction. Started with The Eyre Affair and am now chortling my way through Something Rotten. The world is just so much bigger, and funner, with people like this in it!

Alternate formats

Here's one thing that I have yet to encounter in all the hubbub about ebooks, graphic novels, smart phone texts, -- all the alternate format stuff that is roaring out there picking up speed and kicking up chipdust: Will any of these formats actually WORK with readers? I don't mean work as in "the acquisition of information" work or even the "providing an entertaining evening" work. There are lots of books that do these things, lots of formats and platforms that do. But what I mean is at the level of literature, can they work? It seems to me that to be locked in, engaged, with a text in a way that affects a person on this level, a crucial element, if not THE crucial element, is the "suspension of disbelief", our internal skeptic that must be muzzled or at least seduced. The extent to which a work of literary art is successful is the extent to which it causes you to suspend disbelief and engage wholeheartedly with it on one or more levels. That's a proposition.

So, if that's the case, how are these AFs (alternate formats) doing at this? Everyone knows, or at least the lucky know, that you can curl up in a cozy chair with a book and get lost in it. Can you suspend disbelief reading lines of text on a 32" LG colour monitor? Fiddling with the buttons as you read your Kindle? Your smart phone? I don't know the answer to that, and I haven't come across anyone who does. If you can, then great, we're set to carry our literary art into the digital universe. But if you can't, then you better be aware of what you might be missing while you are scanning that ebook. What we might be losing if we just let the book slip away like an astronaut's spacewrench into the void.

Book Trailers instead of books in trailers

So, today, Coteau climbs to the next rung of internet marketing with its first ever book trailer, for our kick-*ss teen title Fishtailing. Check it out. www.coteaubooks.com

Book trailer is the new term -- we're used to movie trailers, aka sneak previews, but videos about books? Why not?

The only thing is, this trailer lives on the internet. Why not in movie theatres? Come to think of it, Heather Reisman has an interest in the Cineplex Odeon chain. So why shouldn't we get to see book trailers in front of all the "from the novel by..." movies? I think it's a great idea. Hey Heather, we've got the content if you've got the (screen)time...