On March 29 1944, Anne Frank heard a radio broadcast by the Minister of Education and Culture of the Dutch Government in exile in London. He announced that after the war he hoped to provide eyewitness accounts of the suffering of the Dutch people under German occupation, and stated that everyday documents such as letters and diaries would be valuable for this purpose. This made a profound impression on Anne and she decided to use her diary as the basis for a book to be published after the war.

In March 2012 we were asked by Penguin and The Anne Frank Foundation to co-produce the first officially endorsed interactive digital storybook ‘The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank’.

At that time, I said this would be the most important piece of work BeyondTheStory would ever produce and certainly one of the most complex. Over time and during the development, we begun to realise the collective responsibility we shared in telling this story about, and amid the tension, complexity, beauty and tragedy of Anne’s life. While it was humbling to be awarded ‘All Time Favourite’ by Apple, and then shortlisted for the FutureBook Innovation Awards, this was not what producing Anne’s story was about. It was about a work worthy of her struggles against prejudice and discrimination.

This all became abundantly clear on November 7th when I attended the production of ‘ANNE’ at the new and purpose built Theatre Amsterdam - less than 5 kms from the very Annex in which Anne and her family hid for two years and two months. The purpose of my trip was to launch the newly translated Dutch version of The Diary to a vast audience about a subject matter both very raw and very close to their hearts. It was our app, but it was their story; their city and their Anne. I was honoured to have been invited and immensely proud of our team for making this new digital reality possible - allowing people to go beyond the experience of the stage and into the world of storytelling as Anne would have wanted. Seventy years later, Anne’s story is now interactive and now fully immersive in ways that she could never have imagined as she wrote hidden under the covers with only a candle to guide her.

It is perhaps fitting today as we commemorate soldiers who fought for freedom in both world wars, that we also remember the immense sacrifice of those who lost their lives due to no fault of their own - their religious beliefs. We honour their memory.

We hear a lot about storytelling platforms these days. Yet many of the storytelling platforms are more like glorious wordprocessors. They are more ‘storylogging’. If you have a tech which is designed explicitly as a means to engage readers with the fibres of your story, I might call that storytelling in the modern era. Just putting words in a sequence isn’t enough for me. Actively engaging the reader is more about the future as I see it. Our platform is more akin to having a storyteller sitting with you, seeing your reactions and adapting to you as the story goes. Storyteller and receiver are yin and yang. It’s a performance with a close audience. Just throwing out a set of pages with words on should seem arrogant by comparison.

I’m here at at AnimfxNZ 2014, in Wellington, New Zealand to engage with storytellers to share with you how our technology can enrich the storytelling experience. How we can take you and your audiences ‘beyond the story’ and in a way never achieved before. It’s exciting – to be home, amongst the best of the best in the film and television business. We make apps. But I’m not talking about partially animated apps or apps with gimmicks, or book, film or media companion apps that aren’t based on any underlying text, or apps even attempting to replicate a physical book. We are evolving storytelling into something that can be educational or informative, entertaining or enlightening. As Steve Jobs said: a vehicle in which to “surprise and delight” the audience. There are organisations in our commercial space offering digital services to the publishing industry. These typically take edited manuscripts and transform them into electronic formats for reading on handheld devices. ‘Books and manuscripts on screens.’ We approach storytelling from a different philosophical angle. We’re going back to the nature of storytelling itself, and giving the storytelling industries, publishers, film or television makers, a new means to connect with readers and audiences. As technology has evolved, so the commercialisation of digital devices has opened up new possibilities. We can now bring stories and ideas to life with images, active links, audio, video and 3D content. So let me introduce to you Publisher Plus - a tool that enables narrative to be transformed into an interactive storytelling experience. This offers one digital solution across all devices. For the first time Publisher Plus allows our partners to generate new income streams from their assets using one software solution. No more do writers, editors; curators, designers, animators and developers need to use a multiplicity of tools to produce an animated app. One system … all working in concert and allowing people to work concurrently cutting the process by a third. Publisher Plus which will be launched in April will provide media companies with their own licensed version of the platform, with revenues derived from the development, together with transactional and licensing income.

Filed under STORYTELLERS.

Storytelling, in person, is a conscious act by those gifted to do it, engaging others around them. It’s not a one-way train, but rather a relationship between the storyteller and the listener. Even though only one person may be doing most of the talking, it’s interactive, with the storyteller modifying the ebb and flow of the narrative as he or she studies the faces and reactions of those listening. Skilled storytellers have a dynamic way with words, and the reader is a key participant. Real storytellers cannot hide behind a typewriter or a word processor. For their full story to be told in its deepest colours, they must have that relationship with the reader. Imagine J.R.R. Tolkien, having put out the last coals on the hearth on a wintry evening, sitting up close with his excited sons as he told them – as he did – the early forms of the tales that would go on to become part his Middle-earth cycle. The sleepy children are engaged with the story, hanging off every word, questioning every turn, and sending their father off on tangents he had not prepared. This is storytelling at is best, at its most personal, and, indeed, at its most truthful. We can’t bring Professor Tolkien into every child’s room. But we can provide storytellers with the means to expand their stories beyond words themselves, to give new digital readers the opportunity to explore great stories using the technology they keep close to them throughout the day. This is why we’re developing the Beyond The Story publishing platform, to capture stories as they come to life, to bring the new reader closer to the context and colour of the story.

Great discussion on FutureBook (digital blog from the Bookseller), from Gareth Cuddy, see his blog below. I would reply that market forces will decide on a Netflix or Spotify etc for books, not publishers. Publishers finally must meet the demands / satisfy their customers and authors. Digital publication in whatever format is here to stay and quality content creation, distribution and price competitiveness must be at the heart of the growth and change.

Gareth Cuddy says one thing for sure is that the key functions of quality and curation while leveraging this new low-cost digital market is key. That’s what our publishing platform achieves. We can can make quality digital books in an affordable and scaleable way- at one end of the spectrum, ebooks and the other, beautiful interactive book apps.

Here’s the original blog, thanks Gareth (or see it at FutureBook) “It seems that not a week goes by recently when we hear about a company that is “Netflix for eBooks” or “Spotify for publishing”. While I think that the industry desperately needs innovation and fresh thinking, I have my doubts about this type of model ported from other media areas. It may very well be where the industry ends up in time, but I think for the next 2-3 years these start-ups will find it tough. So here are some questions that we should maybe consider when discussing Spotflix for books;

1. Will investors back these companies? I think the answer to that one is very much yes – Oyster gets $3m to become the Spotify of books. From the outside looking in it makes total sense for a content industry – it worked in music and video – why not books?

2. But, it changes the publishing business model fundamentally. When you think about it, eBooks didn’t change the industry’s business model – it simply changes its distribution model. The financials behind eBooks are still based on the print principle of a wholesale price per title or book. You can argue about margins and costs and so on, but the principle remained the same.

Subscription models alter this model completely. Instead of receiving full (or discounted) revenue per title, the publisher will receive a portion of a subscription fee instead. For an industry revolving around units this is difficult to comprehend. And with no visibility on volumes or revenues it’s a tough one for publishers to gamble on.

1. Buy-in is crucial. For the reasons above it will be very difficult to get full buy in from the major publishing houses. It’s equally remarkable and understandable that in an industry experiencing rapid change that the major powers to be are so reluctant to gamble on new business models. Why would a publisher gamble established sales v guesstimated subscription revenue? Backlist access is fine, but what really drives a commercial model like this is frontlist.

2. Will readers want this? On the whole, you would have to say probably. Readers will love the convenience and most importantly the pricing. However, if full buy-in from major houses is not present then you will have an early Netflix like issue where the selection didn’t match customer expectations. Interestingly enough, recent surveys indicate that the average reader reads (across digital & print) approximately 15 books per year or 1.2 per month. So for the average reader, does a subscription make sense in a world of daily deals and heavy discounts? It’s not a compelling argument. It does leave that group of super-readers as a target market. The key question there is are there enough of them to sustain a scalable business?

So, in summary I think that buy in from major and minor publishers alike for front list titles will be difficult to get. Like many innovations and early-stage concepts it will take a few brave publishers to go all-in and accept the consequences. Only through demonstrating clear revenue gains and minimal impact on traditional sales, both digital and physical will the industry as a whole begin to move.

Filed under STORYTELLERS.

The Shortlist for the 2013 FutureBook Innovation Awards are out and one of the most celebrated books of all time The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, is short-listed in the Best Reference Digital Book category. I’m delighted for two reasons: Anne Frank is an inspiration for empowerment and leadership amongst young people as a global symbol for ending oppression and discrimination through collaboration. As I said to our team at the conclusion of the project, we should be honoured that Viking, Penguin and the Anne Frank Foundation entrusted us with such an important task. Second, to achieve this recognition and to be in the company of the best in our industry is an outstanding achievement for everyone involved. These Awards celebrate the best in digital books at a time when the market dynamics of how we engage in storytelling have been irrevocably shaken up by technology. Our app is a perfect example of how book apps are extending storytelling into creative places that are opening up exciting new opportunities for authors. I’m immensely proud of our team and all of the curators and researchers who helped make this a reality. A very special thanks to my colleague Kirk Bowe, for inspiring and producing such a fine piece of work.

Filed under STORYTELLERS.

The market dynamics of how we engage in storytelling have been irrevocably shaken up by technology. It’s not about format shift so much as the way we package and repackage content to suit different formats.

Many publishers, like other retailers, are being out-maneuvered by digital stores, selling direct to shoppers. Amazon makes shopping one easy click away.

Many content providers have moved to much less linear formats than a traditional book, offering rich 3d experiences more akin to a games experience. And then there is the rise of the tablet. Readers can choose from multiple formats for their content. Books can now be enjoyed across multiple platforms, from paper books to digital ebooks, to fully immersive apps.

New generations of readers look increasingly to the tablet. The visionaries in publishing are imploring: embrace disruption, lean thinking. That means optimising the potential along the value-chain from author to story, for each of the technologies that words can flow across, to inform, stimulate and delight.

Digital is being pushed into creative places that are opening up in an exciting way.

TV studios have had a renaissance in being able to provide a whole new wave of content for their fans who can use new digital realities to pick and choose drama series on demand, either original narratives or as book extensions, according to popular request.

Similarly film studios have grasped the commercial opportunity.

For BeyondTheStory TV and film studios are increasingly the storytelling channels where we can best create value-added product. That is because our book apps cannot be promoted where they should belong on an Amazon book shop – we have to deal with only an Apple store channel, where people look for games and travel guides.

Plus more often than not it is too difficult to convince a publisher that an app offers yet another rich alternative to giving readers a fantastic storytelling experience, and that it is well worth the investment as one more essential piece of packaging up content.

Filed under company-news, media.

Our most recent project was a companion app for Series 3 of the hit NZ comedy TV show The Almighty Johnsons. Working in partnership with South Pacific Pictures, the brief was to provide a novelised adaption of the script for each episode as it aired in 3 separate regions : New Zealand, UK and Canada. Along with the novelisation, each episode includes interviews with the cast, information about key locations and information about the main themes. Images and videos related to each page are presented contextually as readers flick through the book.

The main challenge was to dynamically deliver content to different countries at different times. We had to develop a bespoke content delivery system to manage the distribution of content to different regions.

Key Technical Achievements:

• Episodic delivery of content across multiple regions




• Extensive use of Unity Asset Bundles to load new episodic content into Unity.




• Creation of a bespoke Bundle builder editor tool to allow for drag and drop creation / editing of Asset Bundles for both iOS and Android.




• Server side application to manage the delivery of episodic content to different regions on different dates and time zones . The application managed the different states of content across regions, pre-installed not available to view, preinstalled available to view, content available to download and content not available.




• Development of a native video plugin for Unity, since the asset store solutions are not multiplatform (iOS and Android) and when they are, they cannot keep the Audio in Sync with the video.

Lessons learned:

• It is not possible to store video content in Unity Asset Bundles, if serving this content remotely it needs to be served separately and stored in the target device’s persistent data path.




• Bundle resource allocation needs to be handled manually in Unity. References to bundles are stored in memory indefinitely even when navigating between scenes. This will cause memory leaks if not managed.




• Native Unity Plugin (Android/iOS) to calculate the disk space available on the device, used inside the Asset Bundle download component.

Filed under tech.

BeyondTheStory UK-based innovator of multi-media enhanced eBooks, has teamed up with internationally acclaimed New Zealand entertainment company South Pacific Pictures, producer of the hit New Zealand comedy/drama television series The Almighty Johnsons.

BeyondTheStory CEO Jen Porter said: “This is the first time we’ve partnered with a TV studio. To date our eBooks are the result of partnerships with publishers such as Hachette, Harper Collins and Penguin, independent authors, and most recently Sony Entertainment Pictures, transforming their works into multi-media apps, with images, audio, behind-the-scenes video, 3D content, and real-time updates.

“It was a coup for the company to be contracted to produce the digital edition of The Almighty Johnsons screenplay and more importantly to also “novelise” the 13 episodes.

“Fans of the comedy-drama about the four brothers who just happen to be descended from Norse Gods, will get to enjoy not only watching Series 3 but also, with our app, immerse themselves in the adventures of the Johnson family by reading the novelised episodes and getting to know more about the characters and their god-like powers.” she said.

Kelly Martin, Chief Executive of South Pacific Pictures said: “This innovation is a first for a New Zealand television series and we are delighted to be partnering with BeyondTheStory® on The Almighty Johnsons interactive app.”

The third series will be released in New Zealand on July 4^th, rolling out in Australia, Canada, the UK and other global territories later in 2013.

BeyondTheStory which built its unique app platform in the UK, has a string of enhanced e-book successes to show with its latest app After Earth: Kitai’s Journal made for US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment/Overbrook which went live May 23^rd.

Other enhanced BeyondTheStory eBooks include award-winning titles such as Anne Frank - The Diary of a Young Girl and Kings and Queens by David Starkey, bringing to life 2000 years of Britain’s monarchy.

CEO of BeyondTheStory® Jen Porter makes a passionate plea borne of experience as a leading developer of interactive book apps. She asks whether the public is being educated or even has a mindset to look for interactive and immersive books on app stores?

“If book apps are put on online book stores then buyers can make a discerning decision about what digital editions they want to purchase and the price they want to pay.”

“The intelligent reading public is missing out. Clever and insightful enhanced digital books must compete for visibility alongside games and productivity apps, instead of the e-reading storefronts where the great majority of the book reading fan bases reside.”

She says her message to Amazon and Apple is: “self interest competition is no place for a free trading environment.”

“You might think all is well that people are migrating to digital in droves to read e-books using standard e-ink formats. Publishers are flooding the market with flat text editions at prices akin to physical books – and people pay these prices, despite poor formatting and rendering.  The book buying public doesn’t seem to care about this and the app stores care even less. Publishers are seen to satisfy their customers and authors are grateful for having some form, any form, of digital publication in the market.”

“Meanwhile highly immersive digital books such as The Diary of Anne Frank and The Waste Land are located on the app store instead of the places where the great majority of readers look for books.”

Jen Porter says that loading her company’s digital “+Books” on the app store is an exciting moment for a development company like BeyondTheStory®. With complex works such as its recent Editor’s Choice ‘Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl’ or just-released  ‘After Earth – Kitai’s Journal,’ Beyond The Story had been in months of management, creative and development to bring the +Book to fruition.

“Once submitted, companies like BeyondTheStory® wait for ‘app nirvana’ in the form of ‘editor’s choice’ or ‘staff picks…’ We pause until the carousels have rotated and either go out for a wine to celebrate, or commiserate.”

“Ratings are everything. If you’re not featured on a storefront, then despite all your best efforts at negotiating rights, dealing with the various app platform providers, publishers, film companies along with expansive PR and marketing plans come to nothing. Your app will be destined to that bottomless black hole along with millions of other apps all fighting for some degree of recognition. And despite the Philosopher, Adam Smith’s avocation of a free trade market in which supply and demand rules, without discoverability you are dead in the water.”

Filed under digital-publishing.