If you listen to music while you read, chances are the sounds and words don't match up.
But what if you could use one to augment the other, adding ambient sounds to your favorite book to turn it into a cinematic experience?
Booktrack is a digital publishing tool that reinvented itself as a DIY platform for bloggers, artists and writers to self-publish their work with synchronized soundtracks. Writers can embed songs from a catalogue of 20,000 licensed audio files, adding mood music, ambient audio and sound effects to play in tune with story lines, paced to a user's reading speed.
Any digital text or e-book is fair game. As long as writers own the rights to content, or the work is in the public domain (think The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), they can then publish on the Google Chrome Web Store. So far more than 10,000 people have started creating since Booktrack relaunched last week.
Copy and paste text into the platform, highlight what you want to apply audio to, then search for sounds based on genre, theme and category. After you drag and drop music over the text, you're ready to publish and share on social media. Booktrack's creators say the next step is to be able to directly import text from URLs and e-publications into the platform.
"The target user is anyone with a story to tell," Paul Cameron, Booktrack co-founder and CEO, told Mashable. "Both authors and audio enthusiasts and professionals who can not only explore a new creative outlet, but also reach new fans and promote their work in a new medium."
Currently, the platform doesn't charge users to create, publish and share. A mobile version is coming, as is the ability for writers to sell titles and priced premium features. For every book sold, Booktrack will take about a third of the revenue, similar to how iBooks or Kindle make money from authors.
Cameron said the idea was spurred by his co-founder and brother Mark, who noticed music on his playlist sometimes matched a scene in the book he was reading.
"This was pre-Kindle times, so our original prototypes and patents included paper books, mobile phones and remotes clicked onto books," Cameron said.
In 2011, Booktrack debuted as an iOS app focused on professional authors like Salman Rushdie; a total of 40 titles sold more than 250,000 downloads. Now, the company — backed by a group including Peter Thiel of PayPal — has raised two investment rounds and a total of $4 million in venture funding.
Changing the E-Book Model
Jordan Passman, CEO and founder of scoreAscore, which connects composers with companies seeking music, thinks Booktrack could benefit from composer collaboration. The trouble, he said, is offering quality music that matches the writers' vision. Passman added that it will be challenging to turn writers into composers, even if the audio and text is compelling."Talent is king, and even if the book has soundtracks, it has to be a fantastic book for people to invest time and money it has to be a fantastic book for people to invest time and money," he said.
Mark Jeffrey, author and the co-founder of the digital publishing platform Glossi, said audio experience can help readers immerse themselves in text. But he worries about distribution.
"As an author, why would I put all the effort in to creating something this elaborate unless I can make substantially more money or become substantially more well-known?"
Booktrack's Cameron thinks his tool is effective for writers because it allows them to reinvent the reading experience, a subject he touched on in a past TED talk. He said it helps engagement, noting a recent New York University study proving that listening to music increases comprehension and retention rates.
According to a phenomenon called the "Mozart effect," listening to classical music improves mental performance. Studies from Stanford University reported a link between classical music and improved cognitive reasoning.
"Anything that gets children and adults engaged around reading has got to be a good thing," Cameron said. "Music brings emotion to our lives and our movies. We are just doing the same thing for reading."
from: Mashable
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