The Story: from mobile to print…..

I have said it before: my intention when I started writing The Story was to make it a book totally conceptualized for the smallest screen—that of your smartphone. A print edition was NOT in my plans.

In fact, this is what I recommend to participants in my workshops: when you are out reporting your story, imagine how that story will read, and how it will look on the screen of the phone. That way, you will think multimedia, video, audio, animated graphics—and not just static photos.

However, my smart publisher Thane Boulton, of Thane & Prose (New York), started thinking that perhaps The Story deserved to have a print edition.

“I believe in print, ” he told me during one of our meetings sharing a meal in Downtown Manhattan. “I think your book needs to be present in a printed edition that will also make a very nice coffee table book.”

Sure, I said. And I sort of forgot about it. Then September 15 The Story was launched and a few days later my copy of the print edition arrived at my doorstep.

It was love at first sight. It is a little quirky, I thought. The type is large (people of a certain age will appreciate that), and because I designed the book with our art director Paula Ripoll, to be one important visual per screen, those images fill the pages of the book. The more I look at it, the more I like it. It is my coffee table book, of course.

Pages of The Story’s print edition

Here you see how the various visual templates of the mobile edition transferred to ink and paper:

I am quite pleased with The Story‘s print edition, and, especially after a fellow Columbia School of Journalism professor told me:

The Story may very well be the first example of a book in print that was originally conceived only as a mobile publication.

Hold that thought!

https://monocle.com/minute/2019/09/21/

From Monocle Weekend

THE INTERROGATOR / EDITION 30

Mario García

Editorial consultant Mario García has advised the most important newsrooms in the world on design – and how best adapt to a digital transition. More than 700 publications, from The Wall Street Journal to the South China Morning Post, have received his strategic steer. Other than being an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism, he also runs his own consultancy firm: García Media. Nowadays his speciality is how digital devices influence narrative structure and consumption; his latest book, The Story, was written specifically to be read on a phone. Here, though, he confesses to a few analogue pleasures.

What they are saying about The Story!

The Story is here!

You can now download my new mobile storytelling book, The Story, from Apple Books at $6.99
This is Book 1 of a Trilogy! The other two books coming soon.
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-story-volume-i/id1480169411

The newspaper remains the most powerful source of storytelling on the planet. But technology threatens its very existence. To survive, the Editor must transform, adapt, and manage the newsroom in a new way. Order The Story by Mario Garcia, chief strategist for the redesign of over 700 newspapers around the world.

My chat with in Monocle Radio

Listen to my chat in Monocle Radio’s The Stack: Latest episode‘The Face’ and ‘The Story’:We welcome the return of the print version of ‘The Face’ and talk to legendary newspaper designer Mario Garcia about his latest book, ‘The Story’.
https://monocle.com/radio/shows/the-stack/368/play/

My interview with CNN en Español

I was a guest in the program Encuentro, hosted by Guillermo Arduino daily at CNN en Español. The interview was about how we read on mobile devices and my introduction of my new mobile storytelling book, The Story, to a Spanish-language audience.

García: Si tienes una buena historia, la gente la va a leer

Mario’s speaking engagements

Presentation of The Story at the Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa (SIP) in Miami, as the organization celebrates its 75th anniversary serving the Latin American Press, Miami.

October 4, 2019