An Australian writer is seeking to become a pioneer of digital publishing with a venture that’s making the most of new publishing technologies. Nathan Farrugia has an ambitious project in mind - in fact, he’s calling it ‘the future of story-telling’. The Chimera Vector is, according to its author, “a conspiracy techno-thriller of unusual depth, snappy dialogue and edge-of-your-seat action”. Farrugia has turned to Kickstarter, a website that allows creative artists to raise money for their projects, to raise $140,000 to develop the project. The money will fund an “awesomely interactive app” that will encompass an ebook, a full-cast, scored audiobook, a graphic novel with optional narration and soundtrack, a soundtrack and “unlockable content, achievements and inventory”. With 15 days to go, the project has raised about $30,000. Contributors have been promised various rewards for funding the project - the most generous, for example, will have characters named after them.
The Chimera Vector is the first novel to have been signed up by Pan Macmillan’s new ebook imprint, Momentum. In a press release promoting the project, Farrugia claims that The Chimera Vector will attempt to harness all the potential that ebooks offer: “There are enhanced ebooks, there are transmedia products, there are a few book apps with bells and whistles. But nothing cohesive, nothing integrated, nothing truly groundbreaking. Is that really the best we can do?” The ebook is expected to be launched in April 2012.