“Why It’s A Book Soundtrack, My Dear Watson.”

Have you ever read a book and been jerked out of the story? You are right at that scene where a well dressed member of the opposite sex is sweeping you - I mean the character - off their feet when you brother’s well timed fart beside your ear pulls you from the fantasy. Or a car back fires as you imagine a plane flight, or a leaky tap just won’t stop dripping when your main character is in the desert, or the tree that your character has been talking to so earnestly suddenly speaks with your child’s voice asking you when dinner is ready. Is the sound track of life keeping you out of the moment?

It may have been, until now. Due to some very smart thinkers your e-book can not only keep you in the moment, it can enhance it. The company Booktracks is currently creating synchronized soundtracks for e-books, with the music embedded into the book. The technology is designed to play the ambient music (a sad song during a gloomy chapter or horns during a dashing attack) and sound effects at the individual’s reading pace. It is not an audio book, no one is reading the story to you, it is trying to make the story come alive through music. It provides a similar function to a movie sound track. Can you imagine watching Pirates of the Caribbean with no music and just the dialogue? It would be like watching a very drunk man stagger about in a fancy dress costume in the middle of Sydney’s CBD, completely lacking in atmosphere and class.

This company has taken interactivity to a whole new level by immersing and enhancing the story rather than detracting from it with flashy videos or pictures. Booktracks were commissioned to enhance ‘The Power of Six’ by Pittacus Lore, the sequel to ‘I Am Number Four’. But they have also taken several copyright free classics such as Sherlock Holmes (currently available for free) and created ‘booktracks’ for them.





Another e-book which includes its own soundtrack is Moxyland by Lauren Beukes who worked with African Dope Records to produce a soundtrack for the book. Though not as advanced as the Booktracks technology it has been praised as very effective by readers/listeners of the e-book.

Imagine the sorts of things an indie author can do with this. It can go a lot further then ambient music of the right tone, it can add to the character and a reader’s connection to them. For example, if your main character is a musician, you can have snippets of the character’s original music embedded in the story. Rather than imagining the creative process of the character, the reader is hearing it! Using a full version of Adobe Acrobat you can embed multimedia, such as music, yourself. Or if that’s too tech for you, you could recommend a playlist of songs for your e-book that a reader could listen to as they read your story.

So consider, what can you add to your e-book that will drown out the sound of that pimple face kid next door massacring Blues Brothers with his new saxophone?

My recent novel a comedy set in Facebook, The Grand Adventures of Madeline Cain, is available at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/the-grand-adventures-of-madeline-cain. You can also purchase E-Book Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to E-Book Success at http://emilycraven.bkclb.co/e-book-revolution-the-ultimate-guide-to-e-book-success.