Beyond Paper – stories live in your imagination, not inside a book

Storytelling in the digital age

Another major milestone in jovoto’s (r)evolution: we’re now collaborating with the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s leading marketplace connecting publishers, book sellers, authors, and readers – a must-go event for the entire  publishing industry.

A major theme of the Frankfurt Book Fair 2o1o is to embrace digitization. With Frankfurt SPARKS, the Book Fair has launched a series of lectures, exhibitions, and other activities dedicated to exploring smart solutions and future business options in an era which I’d like to dub “Beyond Paper”.

The Contest

jovoto, from August 25th to Ocotber 5th, will be one of the virtual venues of the SPARKS program. In an open competition, everyone is invited to tell a story and show how it can be told”BP”, crossing media borders, spilling over into online, visual and interactive or immersive manifestations, and back again.

The contest is open for submissions until September 30th.
Read the task and sign up to participate here.

First submissions can already be seen here: Some authors of our partner, the textmanufaktur, have supplied short stories and are now in search of cooperation partners. We need people who want to grab one of the story sparks and transform the basic elements into a convincing cross media concept!

There’s a total of €5000 Prize Money to be won, and what’s best: winning concepts will be exhibited and presented live on the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, where the publishing world and the interested visitors will take notice.

Also, each contest participant will get free entry to Frankfurt Book Fair! The 12 winners will additionally each receive entry tickets to the storydrive conference (ticket are worth about €600!). Contributors who stand out for their community-spirited rating or commenting behaviour will also be rewarded with a storydrive ticket.

Examples of crossmedia storytelling

What forms can crossmedia (or transmedia, as it is also sometimes called) storytelling take? Literally, there are no clear boundaries, and crossmedia can cover as diverse a range as spinning character-based toys off of a successful movie, to enabling fan-generated extensions of a story online, in wikis, forums, blogs, etc.

Here are some examples I find particularly interesting.

Lost – TV-Series and Universe

Lost started out as a Mystery/Adventure TV series on the US TV station ABC, the first season airing in 2004. But clearly, it’s producers had more in mind than creating ‘only’ a highly successful TV series. They did such a good job in involving the series’ fans beyond the TV-Experience that they ended up creating a whole universe and a very involved community fan base around the story.

Lost Fan-Art created by bairdy4815 on fanpop.com

The producers did so by offering additional footage, more hints to solve the mystery or understand character. They initiated Alternate Reality Games (ARG) around the story (like The Lost Experience and Find 815), took the time for an official Lost Podcast, allowed and fostered fan involvement and speculation on countless fan websites and forums. And yes, in the end, there was also a Lost videogame and Lost character action figures.

All in all, the producers of Lost set the bar of what’s possible way up there. By intentionally leaving some storylines open, dropping hints and offering spaces for speculation, they managed to draw people in and become part of the story. Ultimately, the Lost universe can be seen as a conversation between the producers and the fan community, not just a one sided relationship between someone that tells a story and someone that listens. And this is what made Lost such a huge success.

Lonleygirl15 – User Generated Fake

Lonleygirl15, back in 2006, was the name of a community member on youtube. She started out as a regular, teen-aged youtube user – filming herself talking into the camera, sharing everyday life experiences and slowly, but steadily, gathering a following. People liked her because she came across cute, authentic, funny and smart. Other youtube members interacted with her by commenting on her videos, or sending her video replies.

With more and more followers, she turned into a youtube phenomenon, and her story became more and more absurd. Finally it was revealed (by some fans who were starting to disbelieve the character), that Lonleygirl15 was a fiction, a TV-series produced and implanted into Youtube to create a buzz.

Still, after this was revealed, Lonleygirl15 remained a success and numerous spin-off series evolved. A great example of how to achieve big things with a small budget and a ridiculously smart idea. It also shows what’s possible in web-based, low-budget episodic storytelling.

Marvel Comics Iphone / Ipad Ap

Another example of clever cross-media use I’d like to mention are the relatively new and highly acclaimed Apps for iphone and the ipad by the legendary comic publishing house Marvel. They must have realized at an early stage that brilliant color screens which allow intuitive interaction like zooming and scrolling are an ideal playground to present comics in. Their comic app is a reader and store in one. As a comic fan myself, I just hope the new opportunities offered here will result in more comics being published and read as devices such as the ipdad become more and more popular!

More inspiration

There are countless more examples of intriguing and well-done crossmedia storytelling concepts. Here are some more reading suggestions:

blog about transmedia storytelling in TV

Inspiration provided by the Frankfurt Book Fair