The Director and Senior Editor at Book Hub Publishing has asked me to write a short blog on dissemination of our evolving project and I’m delighted to do so. I’m really excited to write a book about my personal journey from adoption in war torn Romania in 1990 through growing up in Ireland and into the Celtic Tiger years – before embarking on a journey as another Irish person in the history of American broadcasting.
A book, and what we perceive as a book, has changed its form rapidly as technology has ushered us into the 21st century. Due to the randomness of my short life having lived and worked in LA, New York, England, Tennessee and Alabama all in the last 4 years, this book will be as much digital as it will be paper. This reflects the dynamism of our times.
The aim is to release our content as an audio podcast and a Youtube web series as well as in the more traditional book form. The audio series will be available on download like an audio book, chapter by chapter, for promotion purposes and in its entirety as one large audio file. The web series will also be released chapter by chapter. Each chapter will be read by ‘yours truly’ and uploaded week by week made available in one large video file download on Vimeo and Youtube. Snippets will also be posted on Vine and Instagram. The physical book launch will also be live streamed to engage a millennial and digital audience overseas.
The purpose of such an approach is to keep a global audience engaged and feel that they interact with the book as much as the writer and Publishing House. In my journalism and on TV, I have always believed in giving back to the viewer and connecting, not just sitting behind a desk. This book will also be an example of my media philosophy which is to not just have an audience and say, “This is it” but to reach out to those across our planet and learn from each other through this text. This will be further built on using a Q & A live on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus and getting audiences to pick their favorite chapters using internet polls.
Of course, for the more traditional amongst you, our book will also be in physical form as a trade paperback, but I feel the global digital reach available to us all through online means will allow us to engage a truly international audience. Via Kindle and Amazon, downloadable tablet forms will also relate to a younger audience who are used to tapping and swiping more so than flicking pages.
Most importantly, you can access the content on multiple platforms in multiple formats. This is the way of the world now. And, I’ve embraced it. So too, with my Publishing House. Now, all I need to do, is convince them. Yours, James.