Can you sell books in imaginary stores?
The publishing industry gurus at GalleyCat just reported that Bantam Dell will start promoting books in the imaginary world of Second Life where hundreds of thousands of real-life people use digital representations of themselves, or “avatars,” to interact with a videogame landscape.
As I've explained before, Second Life is a "massively multiplayer online role-playing game" (or MMORPG), a participatory videogame environment that allows players to explore fantastical landscapes and communicate with typed messages. It's a community, in other words, and I love seeing how writers can build reading communities on the web.
"As first reported by PW Daily and now picked up by Ed Nawotka at Bloomberg, Bantam Dell has announced that it is the latest publisher to set up shop in the virtual world of Second Life. Fittingly, they've chosen Dean Koontz and his newest novel THE GOOD GUY (slated for publication on May 29) as their launch title there."
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It will be interesting to see if this develops the kind of reader base they hope for.
Posted by: Steve Clackson | March 15, 2007 10:19 AM | Permalink to Comment