Soundtracked
Just to assure you that there’s no such thing as an original idea, Publisher’s Lunch links to a Wall Street Journal story of writers who had the nerve to come up with the same brainchild I have. Unfortunately, the online Journal is restricted only to paid subscribers, but until I get my hands on a print copy, it’s enough to know that some recent books have come with soundtracks…sometimes packaged with the book, sometimes informally posted online. These authors were thinking mostly of readers listening to music that captures the mood or theme of the story as they read:
James Patterson spent $100,000 commissioning a CD for one of his Maximum Ride titles, and 100,000 cds were sent to radio stations and given away as promos.One bellwether site: “One byproduct of the book soundtrack trend has been the transformation of a grassroots music blog into a coveted marketing slot for authors …. (One) blog, called Largehearted Boy, features a running series called ‘Book Notes.’ About once a week, an author of a recent book posts a list of songs that inspired the work or that readers might want to listen to as they turn the pages.”
Yikes! If I have $100K to invest in book promotion, I’d rather take my bad self on a worldwide book tour. Can you say “springtime in Cape Town”? Still, kudos to Patterson et.al. for inventing the wheel so I don’t have to.
As I mentioned in previous postings, I envisioned a soundtrack that would not only provide background music conducive to reading, but stand alone as its own entertainment. Rather than commissioning work, I would prefer to generate permission to use existing songs from my “unofficial” writer’s block soundtrack.
One issue that a “soundtrack” trend would create is the purity of and integrity of the reader’s experience. Reading is one of the few activities where the human animal can create paradigms with his own imagination. Do we really want intangible emotions fed to us? What, then, is the last frontier?
Find out on the next episode of Reading and Writing…We Imagine So You Don’t Have To!
