Professionals in the book field, are facing two major changes : globalization and digitization. To cope these news challenges Transbook organizes meetings, lectures, masterclasses, and creating forums in different countries.
The European project for the digital transition of the youth edition sector is led by Salon du livre et de la presse jeunesse de Montreuil and will gather for 4 years, 6 other European partners. All the partners are the organizing bodies of fairs and festivals. They regularly bring together all the professionals in the industry (authors, translators, publishers, booksellers).
The project intends to encourage the creation of new business models, new modes of artistic creation and more networking. All these ingredients could participate in inventing the children’s literature of the XXIst century.
On 28 november 2014, the conference was looking for new forms of difital storytelling. Of the many influences of video games and digital technology on education and narration, the impact of interactivity seems to be the most prominent.
That discussion was continued during a master class, on 4 june 2014, named « paper and digital creation : constraints and challenges”. It gathered writers and illustrators who introduced their project exploring the possibilities of interactivity.
Non linear narrative
According to Etienne Mineur, co-founder of the inventing studio « volumiques », the book is a perfect design product that will never die. What is interesting is to make it interact with new technologies to stimulate creativity and renew narration. For instance the use of digital tablet, in a horizontal position, calls for shared reading experience. With or without digital tools, different storytelling are possible. And already in the 1970, gamebooks were playing with interactivity. Julie Stephen Chheng, transports the userinto a poetic universe, through fold out books or arrangement of shapes cut, that continues through mobile applications.
This non linear narrative involves a mixture of skills and subjects and stimulate the artist’s imagination.
Looking for new business models
A crucial issue that remains is production. For instance, in case of mobile application, user are not ready to pay for the service they use. Yet an application is expansive to design. To compensate for this, volumiques publishing have found a business model : to sell a tangible object (like a book) that give acess to the application and justify the sale price : « we fund the expansive object with the cheap one ».
An other obstacle to the emergence of the hybrid forms lies in the book industry itself. Publishers are often reluctant to this unknown universe. Often producers in visual art are more open to transmedia. And a direct contact with the users demonstrates that children and adults are very open minded and keen to become the hero of the story…
For more information : http://transbook.org/
