Publisher’s Weekly (10/14/11) reports:
“What if you’re writing a book and the audience already had a relationship with the content when the book came out,” said Alex LeMay, CEO of the Shadow Gang, a firm that creates on- and offline social communities. LeMay and Shadow Gang have partnered with YA novelist Michael Grant to create an immersive transmedia project called GoBZRK, around Grant’s next novel that does just that.
“Publishing is more than books,” LeMay said during an interview at PW’s offices about BZRK, the title of Michael Grant’s new thriller, scheduled to be published in February 2012 by Egmont. “Storytelling is key, and a story can be anything from an author’s notes to, well, whatever,” LeMay explained. “So how do you unlock the story from the book?”
GoBZRK is a six-month-long interactive transmedia prequel to Grant’s novel; it began in August and uses everything from multiple Web sites to social media, incorporating an elaborate layering of fictional subplots, character blogs, Web comics, role-playing games, videos, and mobile device apps in an intricately scripted gaming experience, aimed at fueling online interest in Grant’s book before it appears in stores. It’s a born-transmedia project, plotted out by Grant and LeMay, an experienced film, TV, and commercial director, who has organized a team of writers, game developers, and social media experts to produce the project. GoBZRK is being paid for by Shadow Gang, Grant, and Egmont.
Read the rest of Calvin Reid’s article HERE
Check out these GoBZRK sites to become an agent yourself: