London – The digital platform allows writers and illustrators across the world to completely control the story.
The book, which will be called Birthland, A New World, uses Google Firebase software so that viewers can watch people contributing to the plot in real-time. While the act of writing a novel is often deemed to be an isolating experience, Boook.Land’s collaborative new approach could add an element of fun to the publishing industry.
The visual identity of the platform also references the format of a traditional book. ‘We talked a lot at the beginning about having a strong print and digital crossover aesthetic to reference the heavily-digital, non-traditional way we were creating a traditionally physical object,’ say the project’s creators. To coincide with National Novel Writing month, the 50,000 word story will be completed by the end of November, with no editing, and will be printed as physical and digital editions.
Creatives are questioning how books can be refashioned for a digital era. Last year, Editions at Play released an online publication that could only be read up to 100 times.