The inspiration
About a year ago, I read a fascinating article at BBC.com "Are paper books really disappearing?" (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160124-are-paper-books-really-disappearing), where Robert Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book and co-founder of Voyager and the Criterion Collection predicts that "the distinction between writer and reader will be blurred by a social reading experience in which authors and consumers can digitally interact with each other to discuss any passage, sentence or line." His latest project, "Social Book "(https://www.livemargin.com/socialbook/client/landing_page.html) "allows members to insert comments directly into digital book texts and is already used by teachers at several high schools and universities to stimulate discussions." Thus began for me a new experiment in exploring the possibilities: An interactive social media platform, a customizable book experience, a digital space where readers interact in real-time with digital copies of their favorite books. The idea has evolved to include the ability to interact not only with living authors on their works-in-progress but with dead authors--yes, that's right--through AI/Algorithms that serve as digital avatars. I have altered not only the content but the structure of this work-in-progress and plan on posting excerpts in a newsletter to be sent out once a week. I just discovered Substack and its features and while I still have a WordPress blog, I'd like to devote this particular space to this project and would love to interact with my subscribers, getting your feedback. For now, I'd like to make subscriptions free. Cheers.