TAKEAWAY: Japan’s largest circulation daily, Yomiuri Shimbun ,is making a major advertising push to attract sophisticated women readers ALSO: Vooks that play the video, too. I suggest Edgar Allan Poe’s collection PLUS: Publish those books faster; Sarah Palin did
Wanted: smart women readers
Ad for Yomiuri Shimbun in the International Herald Tribune over weekend; luring female readers; Utamaro Kitagawa’s image from Six Famous Beauties, of The Courtesans Hanaogi of Ogiya
We hear plenty of talk about “attracting smart, young women readers” to newspapers in newsrooms worldwide.
However, for the first time I have been seen a media house advertise its product specifically for women. I have seen it in a weekend edition of the International Herald Tribune
in Europe. The ad, published by the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun (???? Yomiuri Shinbun?), uses an image from the series Six Famous Beauties, of The Courtesans Hanaogi of Ogiya, by Utamaro Kitagawa, the copy in the ad reads:
This instant, an article captures her heart. Beautiful, Charming and Curious is the woman who reads the Yomirui. She achieves an economic independence, and appreciates accurate reporting rooted in a 135-year history. LIke 26 million other readers each morning, she depends on the Yomiuri to provide the most reliable information from international affairs to the latest modes…….The Japanese woman looks for beauty in our time and knows our mission is timeless.
The ad occupied a quarter page, and included tables with references to the newspaper’s national circulation (13,800,000 readers), and cited that it is read by 25% board directors or higher.
It’s the ‘vook”: no , that it is not misspelled
Now publishers are splicing video, text and Web to create a new digital medium: call it the “vook”.
Newspaper publishers are not the only ones struggling to come up with innovative ways to present information and keep readers interested in a world where this is becoming a greater challenge each week.
Simon & Schuster has announced that it is working with a multimedia partner to relase four “vooks” which intersperse videos throughout electronic text that can be read—-and viewed—-online or on an iPhone or iPod Touch. This is a true definition of the term multiplatforms.
It is a matter of mixing the media, allowing a reader to read text online or in print, but turn to videos to see character development in a more visual manner.
I am ready for my first “vook”. And, if you ask me, I would first love to “vook” my way through the works of Edgar Allan Poe, whose tales of mystery and the macabre would fit extremely well with the reach of multiplatforms. I am curious to see if the way my imagination “saw” the imagery of Poe’s The Raven (1845) matches what a new videographer would make of this poem that has all the right visual components: It tells of a talking raven’s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man’s slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as a student,is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven, sitting on a bust of Pallas, keeps repeating the word “Nevermore”
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
In my view, newspapers are going the way of the book (spelled with a “b”)—-maybe bookpapers? It seems the books going vooks move in the direction of digital multiplatform; definitely a time of transition for how we get information.
In the words of The Raven, books and newspapers as we know them, Nevermore.
Let’s move faster than fast
Meanwhile, while on the subject of books, vooks or bookpapers:
It was a “brief” item on the People columns of newspapers worldwide: Former Alaska Governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has finished her memoir four months after we learned of the book deal. The release date for “Going Rogue: An American Life” has been moved forward to Nov17.
The days of taking a year—-or two—to write a book are over. And who better than Tina Brown, star editor of The Daily Beast, to push for speedier book publishing?
In a venture with Perseus Books Group, The Daily Beast is forming an imprint, Beast Books, that will focus on publishing timely titles by Daily Beast writers, first as e-books, and then as paperbacks—on shorter schedules than presently existing.
A Beast writer would spend one to three months to write a book, and the publisher would take another month to produce an e-book edition.
I like this. I have been contemplating the subject for how it applies to my own work. In my own books, I have spent a year working on the manuscript, securing illustrations (and permits to use them), then months reading edited galleys, working with the publisher’s team, etc. I always found the process extremely long, with both author and editor losing the momentum along the way. In fact, the moment the books appears, I already wanted to change and to update so many things, which is why I like the flexibility new technologies allow writers and editors. I often talk about what an amazing experience writing this blog is for me, and the flexibility it allows me with content and the constant updating of thoughts.
For example, I made a conscious decision to update Pure Design (2002) through this blog. There is no question that the writing process and the first publication of a work is likely to start digitally, then move in its various printed formats. I am seriously considering pulling some highlights of the blog, when we post #500, as a printed paperback.
Yes, it will be done fast, and, who knows, maybe it might be a “vook”, complete with a video component.
I know you are tired of me repeating it: this is the best time for those of us interested in storytelling.
Who is Jacky?
Jacky belongs to Frank Deville. The Luxembourg-based pooch is an “avid reader” of the German newspaper, Bild Am Sonntag. Every Sunday Jacky picks stories and interesting graphics in Bild Am Sonntag , the German newspaper.
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TheMarioBlog post #387