Multimedia “Digi Novel” Arrives This Fall

By Jason Boog 

300px-LG15-Logo.JPGThe web-savvy minds behind the viral video hit lonelygirl15 will build an interactive “digi novel” to accompany an upcoming book project by the creator of CSI–a multimedia story that will interact with the physical book.

The web production company EQAL will create multimedia materials for Anthony E. Zuiker’s upcoming three book series with Dutton, “Dark Chronicles.” According to MediaWeek, another web production company found “relatively low viewership” for a web video series that accompanied Robin Cook’s novel, “Foreign Bodies” last year.

EQAL CEO Miles Beckett outlined his plans in a Hollywood Reporter interview: “[Zuiker] came up with the idea of a digi novel. Every time you read a chapter, there’s a code and a call to action to consume some piece of multimedia content. For example, the killer sits down, puts a tape into the VCR and hits play. [Then you can] go to DarkChronicles.com to access this video with a code. We’re going to build the Web site, power the community and work with him to monetize the site.”