Red Button Publishing

Publishing and Consultancy

A digital breakthrough in the Man Booker longlist

We love the Man Booker Prize. It’s like the Oscars of the literary world. The longlist of thirteen books, whittled down from one hundred and fifty entries, was announced this week. And we were hugely excited to see The Kills by Richard House included. This ambitious book – four interconnecting novels – was published by Picador earlier this year as a digital-first ebook and not only that but a multimedia ebook with audio and video files created by a collaboration between the author and the publisher, bringing the reader experience beyond the limits of the pages.

The Kills is now available in hardback as well with digital content available online, but what is exciting is that this is the first Booker nomination that started life in html rather than on a printing press and therefore a huge breakthrough for digital literature. We’ve blogged before about our frustration at the lack of consideration given to books which are published digitally and even mused over whether it was possible for a digital book to be taken seriously enough to contend for one of the major prizes. Digital formats have been derided by many and seen as the beginning of the end for the publishing of “quality fiction”. But now it seems that the tide is really turning and ebooks are starting to lose some of their stigma. It’s no longer possible to disregard a book because of digital ink it’s written in.

We’re looking forward to diving into the longlist in the coming months. What’s your favourite for the big prize?

Caroline and Karen

 

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This entry was posted on July 25, 2013 by in On digital publishing and tagged , , , , .
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