Good e-Reader is on location in London for the FutureBook conference tomorrow, but the interviews started today with Dominique Raccah of Sourcebooks. The publisher had a very recent launch of an exciting new digital platform called Put Me in the Story, and the reactions to this new personalization platform have been astounding.
Aside from the ability to form special moments from reading together with their children when using a child’s photo and name embedded in the text, Put Me in the Story has the potential to make a tremendous impact on struggling readers. When students discover the personal impact the story has, it can open the door for them to identify with other characters in other books.
Raccah spoke about what may have been the most exciting aspect of this Sourcebooks development, which is the invitation for other publishers to list their titles on the platform in order to incorporate the personalization. In this way, books that were not published by Sourcebooks are still able to be personalized.
Of course, all new developments will have their critics and detractors. Critics of the concept have argued that this level of personalization, despite the encouragement to readers and the efforts of Sourcebooks’ team of digital designers, instead leads to a level of narcissism in an already me-first overloaded society. Also, there have been concerns from authors and publishers that incorporating the young readers into the story is actually altering the authors’ work.
For now, criticisms and concerns aside, Raccah has once again unleashed a digital reading innovation that stands to have a great impact on the future of reading by welcoming new readers to the group. She will be speaking tomorrow at the FutureBook conference about the possibilities for this kind of development.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
