Sweeden based Papercut and United Kingdom’s UsTwo have been busy developing a new platform for a new breed of enhanced ebooks. They are adopting a “wait and see” approach to see where this new endeavour takes them.
Papercut just launched for the Apple iPad and Jonas Lennermo, Head of Publishing at UsTwo, says that Papercut is best thought of as a publishing platform, storefront, and new genre in experimental storytelling. “We started with a simple question, “What happens with a book when you remove the pages? It becomes something different,” he explains.
You might have heard of enhanced ebooks before, this gives you the ability to display pictures, video, text, and animations seamlessly. PushPop Press recently devised a similar system and partnered with Al Gore for a interactive book about climate change. This resulted in Pushpop being acquired by Facebook and their technologies being assimilated for a future social networking update.
The App comprises of three stories to start, penned by some up and coming British authors. They were attracted to a new platform that allowed the authors/artists to express themselves through different mediums in a single ebook. Many different visual elements are evident when you use this application and are a departure from the standard enhanced book.
The two companies are waiting to see how the reception will be to their new iPad app and that will be the deciding factor on whether they have any viability to monetize the platform. It would be great if they released their software so other authors could develop books on their platform. It seems with most enhanced ebooks there is no definitive resource or toolkit for authors to really use.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
