Hard Listening -- a new book by the RBR

Lou_Sytsma

Hard Listening



The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of authors) Tells All -- by Stephen King, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Roy Blount Jr., Mitch Albom, James McBride, Ridley Pearson, Matt Groening, Greg Iles, Sam Barry, and Roger McGuinn



I haven't been given the go ahead to reveal much, but this will be an eBook of all new material, and some of it is REALLY COOL!

Lou_Sytsma

Are you involved with this?

BevVincent

No, not at all--I just contacted the publisher with some questions.

Lou_Sytsma

I'm hearing it contains a previously unpublished King story.

BevVincent

That's not all...

BevVincent

Apparently it's okay to share:



King contributed a new essay, a new short story, and several candid email exchanges to the book. Several of the authors (including SK) contributed short stories written in King's style. Readers then get to vote on which piece was actually written by King, before seeing the results.

Lou_Sytsma

Very cool.  Interactivity with a book - a new paradigm that will be fun to explore.



And presents a lot of new opportunities for writers.

BevVincent

The release date is June 18.



In 1992, a cadre of the world’s bestselling authors formed a garage band called the Rock Bottom Remainders. For two decades the band played proudly (and terribly) to sold out crowds across the country and raised more than $2 million dollars for charity. Last summer, they hung up their guitar picks, drumsticks and leather whips, mourning the tragic passing of their beloved founder, Kathi Kamen Goldmark.



Now, for the first time, these authors share the behind-the-scenes, uncensored story of their two decades of friendship, love, writing, and the redemptive power of rock’n’roll in a first-of-its-kind interactive nonfiction e-book: HARD LISTENING: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All by Stephen King, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Dave Barry, Roy Blount Jr., James McBride, Ridley Pearson, Greg Iles, Sam Barry, and Roger McGuinn, edited by Sam Barry and Jennifer Lou (Coliloquy : to be released on June 18, 2013; available for iBooks, Kindle, Kobo, Android, and NOOK).



HARD LISTENING, with its collection of essays, stories, musings, group email exchanges, candid conversations, compromising photographs, and audio and video (semi-musical) clips, as well as interactive quizzes, is unlike anything else available when it comes to the e-book experience. Fans will delight in its direct access to the brilliant, wacky minds of these popular and talented authors. There’s plenty of teasing, riffing and ragging on each other, but at the heart of the book are these writers’ innermost sentiments about the friendships formed, the love found, and the tragedy of losing to cancer the person who brought them together, Kathi Kamen Goldmark.



Of particular interest to fans of The King: Stephen King’s contributions to the book include a new essay, a new short story, and several candid email exchanges. There is also a featured writing contest, in which several of the authors (including King) contributed short stories written in the author’s style. Readers then get to vote on which piece was actually written by King before seeing the results.



*All author proceeds from the sales of HARD LISTENING will be donated to offset the late Kathi Kamen Goldmark’s medical bills.



>>> Promo page

BevVincent

Excerpt

BevVincent

One of the cool things about this book (on the iPad at least) is that it's multimedia. I've only read the intro by Dave Barry's brother so far but already there have been two inline videos, one of him playing the harmonica on stage and another of the Remainders wheeling King and Greg Isles from the green room through the bowels of the hotel to the stage on a hotel luggage trolley!

BevVincent

There's a great video of everyone in the green room getting a laught out of Mitch Albom's Elvis wig. Steve is rolling on the floor with laughter.

Lou_Sytsma

Looking forward to this.



With Joyland, UTD, Ghost Brothers, & this all coming out this month - it really should be called King Month!

BevVincent

Visualizing the Data of Stephen King

Over the last two months, my company (BookLamp) has had the honor of working with the publisher Coliloquy on a project with Stephen King and the other authors of The Rock Bottom Remainders. We’ve been analyzing their writing, and asking the question, “What does Stephen King’s writing look like compared to theirs?”



I don’t mean that metaphorically — I mean, if you visualize the various themes in his books, what would that look like?

BevVincent

I discuss it in my new FEARnet essay: Stephen King’s Enhanced eBooks

BevVincent

NPR: Digital Scrapbook Collects Rock-Star Authors' Memories

BevVincent

This was posted on King's message board:



I'm one of the editors of Hard Listening, along with Sam Barry. We're super excited for the upcoming release so if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to ask!



To address two questions that came up in this thread:



from Spideyman, regarding Kindle pre-orders:

The book will be available on all platforms on June 18, 2013. We're working with Amazon to get it listed for pre-order, but it's not quite as easy as you might think! I'll let you know if we get it set up.



from mstay, regarding what features other versions will have.



We're releasing interactive versions for iPad, Kindle Fire/HDs, NOOK Tablet/HDs, and all Android devices through Google Play. The functionality and interactivity is the same across all of those devices, but the iPad version has some more elegant design elements.



The non-interactive versions (for E Ink Kindles, E Ink NOOKs, iOS, and Kobo) do not have video or audio, but do include photos and interactive polls. So you will still get to vote for the story you think was written by Stephen King!