'Interactive' novels link e-readers to real-world settings
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Have you ever read a novel and felt immersed in its settings, as if you were walking its streets, browsing shops, exploring museums and historic sites or grabbing lunch at cafes that, when you think about it, are essentially just words on pages?
This is where technology has taken us: Now with just a click, you can be there within seconds.
At least virtually.
But if the book moves readers enough, and they're armed with information about things to do and places to see, they're likely to hit the road and actually go there.
Physically.
That's the vision of Montgomery writer Patrick Brian Miller, creator of the Southeastern Literary Tourism Initiative, who has just jumped on the electronic publishing train and added an innovation of his own: an interactive travel guide within a book.
With the introduction of Kindle editions of the two novels, Blind Fate by Miller and Dixie Noir by noted Montgomery author Kirk Curnutt, the concept of "literary tourism" has, like pretty much everything else in our lives, gone high-tech.
"Once this catches on, it's going to become huge," he said. "People just have to be introduced to it first. My hope is that when they hear about it first, they hear about it through Montgomery. The first always gets a lot of attention."
If you are among the two or three people not familiar with Amazon's Kindle, it's an e-reader (similar to Barnes & Nobles Nook and other models) that allows a shopper to buy an electronic version of a book from Amazon.com and have it appear within one minute on an electronic reading device (prices start at $79).
Miller said he has been surprised by the number of people who respond to this innovation with, "Well, I don't own a Kindle."
What a lot of them don't know is that books downloaded from Amazon's Kindle store can be delivered to personal computers, smart phones and tablets such as the iPad.
In short, just about anyone can Kindle, which makes this new initiative nearly limitless, Miller said.
How does it work? At the conclusion of these e-books, "tourism guides" appear to provide links to the websites of many of the places where the action within the novels has taken place, providing an immediate "you are there" gratification for readers. They can visit websites of locations they're curious about, either on a whim or via a click-through of all the site links listed.
Miller hopes this extra knowledge and insight will lead readers to put down their e-books and get on the road to visit the real-life destinations to which they have just been introduced.
After all, his mission has always been about promoting tourism. Well, literature and promoting tourism. Hence, literary tourism, which is not a brand-new idea. In fact, Miller gratefully acknowledges the work of the Southern Literary Trail which celebrates and guides readers through the hometowns of noted writers from Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.
Electronic tours
Since 2009, when Miller created the SELTI website, he has made it a priority to include supplemental online information about places to visit, such as local attractions, historic sites — even dives and restaurants — that appear in his and other books from authors throughout the Southeast.
SELTI's aim, after all, is to promote literary tourism by introducing readers to a historic area via a compelling short story or poem, which in turn might compel them to visit that place.
The vision is the same. But it just became clearer, closer, faster.
In Miller's Blind Fate, a blind musician living on Lake Jordan is pulled intimately into a murder investigation when she falls for her captor, a lobbyist from Montgomery who is the prime suspect. The tourism guide at the end of the book provides clickable links not only to SELTI but to locations within the story, including Jasmine Hill Gardens, Elmore County, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, the Rosa Parks Museum, St. Peter's Catholic Church, Huntingdon College and the Legends course of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail.
Curnutt's "Dixie Noir" is a mystery set in Montgomery that traces the paths and intersections of some down-and-dirty characters and others who are just down on their luck. At the end of the book, readers are directed to the author's website, where they can find a full array of links related to locations in the book, including the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum and El Rey Burrito Lounge.
Readers can also visit one particular character in her natural habitat. Photographer Diane Prothro took a series of photo illustrations of one of the characters in "Dixie Noir," Red, who is a waitress at El Rey and lives in an apartment above the Fitzgerald Museum. In a bit of art imitating life, the young woman posing as Red is Audria Carr, who is actually a waitress at El Rey.
Miller said Curnutt, an established, prize-winning author, was easily sold on the idea of literary tourism enhanced by technology. Earlier this year, Miller read an Advertiser story in which Curnutt was quoted about the emergence of e-books.
"I contacted him, and he loved the idea of promoting tourism. That was one of his goals," Miller said, "but I don't think he realized the potential of the Kindle to do that, because it was so new."
Spreading the word
A writer on a mission, Miller talks to as many of his fellow authors as he can about the initiative to generate tourism — and money into the local economy — through literature. A lot of times, he's met with blank looks. That is until he opens up his Kindle and shows them.
"I'm trying to create a market," he said. "When they see it, they get excited."
While new technology is what will enable his vision, it is also one of the biggest obstacles, simply because everything is "new, new, new." That makes it increasingly harder to translate the e-book/literature/tourism link, not only to writers and readers, but to people in state and local government positions who Miller believes could benefit if only they grabbed hold of the idea and took off with it.
With more and more advertising hype for stunning new products, that may happen soon.
For instance, Kindle's newest offering, announced just last week and scheduled for release Nov. 15, is the Kindle Fire. Unlike its predecessors, this new model, selling for $199, is more in the realm of popular tablet computers, offering full color, downloads of movies, TV shows and songs (in addition to books), super-fast web browsing, cloud storage and more.
Miller is one dedicated advocate, and he's almost certain that what's going on with SELTI's Kindle connection is the first phenomenon of its kind. Through his online research, the only concept approaching it is an iPhone app created by Japanese author Higashi Moriyama in which readers score points by visiting various locations in Kyoto. But Montgomery beat Japan to it, he said.
Miller looks forward to a day — maybe within three years or so — when there are "tourism novels" all over the country, spurring readers who love to travel to turn around the economy by putting down their well-read e-books and taking to the road.