Neal Stephenson Unveils His Digital Novel Platform

pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Neal Stephenson's company Subutai has released the first installment of Stephenson's new novel, Mongoliad, about the Mongol invasion of Europe, using what it calls the PULP platform for creating digital novels. The core of the experience is still a text novel, but authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video and there are also social features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site or in the application, and interact with other readers. Stephenson says the material is an extension of what many science fiction and fantasy novels already offer. 'I can remember reading Dune for the first time, and I started by reading the glossary,' Stephenson says. 'Any book that had that kind of extra stuff in it was always hugely fascinating to me.' Jeremy Bornstein says Subutai is experimenting with a new model for publishing books and says the traditional model of paying for content may not hold up when the content can 'be canned and sent around to your friends for free,' but that people will hopefully still pay for content if 'the experience is so much more rich, so much more involving.'"

Comments

No thanks

[spiffmastercow]

The price point is too high, the author's last few works have not been up to his previous standard, and leisure reading at my computer is simply not possible.

Re:No thanks

[emkyooess]

Buy access per item. Down with subscriptions!

Re:No thanks

[Ephemeriis]

$10/year isn't bad, except I re-read books intermittently. I'll read a book, shelve it for a few years, and re-read it when there's nothing new that peaks my interest. Under this model, I'm paying $10 essentially every time I read it. Also, Kindles can't handle rich media, and they're still overpriced (and the black on dark grey text looks horrible). Reading a web site on my iPhone is a masochistic endeavor. Call me a luddite if you must, but I prefer paper.

I guess the question is what, exactly, are you paying for?

If you just want to be able to re-read the book again, you can probably download it for future reference. It's a web page. Just grab the HTML (if there isn't an epub download offered).

If you want the whole social media/supplemental content thing... Well, yes, you'd need to pay for that again. But that content will have changed. That's the whole point - to make the novel more dynamic and involved than a pile of printed pages. If you wanted to read the latest edition of a book you'd previously purchased, you'd probably have to pay for that again as well.

No, the kindle can't handle rich media... But neither can paper. Again, what is it that you want?

If you want the whole social media/supplemental content thing - use a computer. A netbook, a laptop, a desktop, whatever. If you want a printed paper analog, use a kindle or a nook or print the thing out.