Pitch at TechRaising 2012 turns into Lithomobilus

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Think of it as the DVD extras for books

If you were at the April 2012 TechRaising event, you might remember Lise Quintana’s pitch asking for people who wanted to help create the future of literature. From that event, Lithomobilus, a new e-reader platform, was born. With the help of the team at productOps, Lithomobilus is now in late beta. Get a taste of Lithomobilus here.

Lithomobilus was conceived as a way of presenting multi-threaded literature (think about how authors like Stephen King and George R. R. Martin write huge novels told from the point of view of many different characters) that gives the reader ultimate control over which character’s story the reader pursues, and how they traverse large, involved text. Using native iOS device navigation (tap, swipe), Lithomobilus presents an intuitive experience that brings reader interactivity to very large texts.

Beyond the creation of new, multi-threaded literature, however, Lithomobilus allows authors and publishers to take existing text and add more content – more book in your book. Author notes, critical commentary and even additional narrative can be added to existing works. Imagine reading Shakespeare and being able to read comments and analysis inline with the text, making the reading experience more fruitful. Think of it as the DVD extras for books.  Even better, readers can discover, purchase and install new content without leaving their place in the text.

In December 2013, Quintana formed Narrative Technologies, Inc. The new company plans to continue development of the Lithomobilus platform, eventually licensing it to publishing companies who will be able to use its unique capabilities to offer the reading public newer, richer reading experiences, and to give a publishing outlet to writers working in very-large-scale ways. Erik Schmidt, formerly of productOps, has recently joined Narrative Technologies as COO, working closely with his former productOps colleagues to continue to build out the platform.

The first publisher to take advantage of Lithomobilus’ expansive capabilities will be Zoetic Press, another of Quintana’s projects. Zoetic will be putting Lithomobilus through its paces through the first quarter of 2014. Watch for an announcement of its upcoming catalog in the second quarter of 2014. The initial catalog will consist mainly of out-of-copyright works that will incorporate new text so that readers can get the full experience of Lithomobilus’ capabilities. Writers interested in publishing with Zoetic Press can email queries to lise@narrativetechnologies.com.

Sara Isenberg
Producer, editor, curator
Santa Cruz Tech Beat – a news digest for folks who want to know and share what’s up in the Santa Cruz technology community.

Sara Isenberg curates and publishes Santa Cruz Tech Beat for the benefit of the extended business and technology community. When she is not volunteering her time for the tech scene, Sara makes her living by managing software projects, web strategy planning, and providing development team services (including account management, vendor management, strategic partner management, beta project management, referrals to qualified technical team members, and more). Please visit http://saraisenberg.com or contact Sara by email at sara@saraisenberg.com if you have any project management, account management, or Development Team leadership or service needs.

Tagged Lise Quintana, Lithomobilus, Narrative Technologies, Zoetic