MB: Here's something for you. An Oxfordshire man has come up with a new way to publish fiction. I've called it a "publishing revolution". And, when I said to him, "I'm going to call it a publishing revolution”, he smiled and laughed. His name is Rob Mumford. He's written a novel. It's set in Botley. And, listen to this; readers can get to know the characters, listen to their music, see their neighbourhoods, hear their thoughts, and even talk back to them. Imagine that; talking back to the characters.....in a book.
Rob's here with me in the studio. A publishing revolution. I think it is.
Hello, Rob.
RM: Hello, Malcolm. You are being very kind. I think it's an interesting idea. The whole thing is an experiment, and sometimes experiments go how you expect, and other times they don't, and often this is the most interesting time. The story is only part of it. The site itself provides writers with a whole new way of writing. They have to adapt their style. You've said the sort of things they can introduce - the music, the thoughts, back-story - all these sorts of things, and in some ways, this requires readers to also read in a slightly different way.
MB: OK, so you've written a novel and the novel is on your site. How does this work? Talk me through it because I'm a bit dumb as far as new technology goes. What will it do.
RM: Well, my collaborator, Will, he came up with the idea. He was sat on a train one day that was not going anywhere, and this is often the best time to have an idea, and when he got off the train, he went online, and found that nobody else was doing it, and he couldn't believe it. So, we talked about it, and we wanted to be first. So, Will worked on the platform, which is what the site is, and I worked on the words. My novel is only part of it. It's purely to prove the concept.
It's quite fun, it's set in West Oxford, it's a black comedy, but it's what pageramming - that's what we call it, the site is www.pageram.net - and the art of this type of writing is called "pageramming", where you ram more information in to a page. And, that's the exciting side.
The story is fun, it's set in Oxford, and readers may well see the landmarks they recognise, because they can visit these places via StreetView. If it's mentioned in the story and you want to go and look at it, you can. In StreetView you can do a 360 degree view. There's a passage in the story that mentions the Police Station, and you can be taken there and look down St Aldates.
MB: How do I talk to characters?
RM: That's via Facebook or via email.
MB: And, do characters talk back to you?
RM: Yes. The characters exist on Facebook. I was talking to Harry, the Producer, yesterday, and we talked about who is really "real" online. These characters exist on Facebook, so to me and to Will, they are real.
MB: "Pageramming" it's called. Have you created that?
RM: That's what we have come up with, and one of our main goals is to introduce a new word to the English language. It's about ramming as much information in to a page as you want to. Not "as you can", but "as you want to". Some people say it's a bit aggressive, but it's what we have come up with, so the act of producing a pageram is "pageramming".
We've gone a bit over the top with "rams", as you have "ramaudio" which is an audio book. It's a multi-sense experience if I am going to be pretentious. We've put everything that publishers are currently doing AND more in to a single site and a single story.
MB: And, it's brining the books to life of course.
RM: That's the plan. We say "where reality becomes fiction". We're really trying to blur it.
MB: "Where reality becomes fiction." I'm going to write that down - reality becomes fiction. Have you had any reaction to this so far, and if so, what's it been?
RM: As I said, when you do an experiment, it doesn't always go as you expect it to. We thought it would divide people. We expected the purists to really hate it, and a certain group - perhaps with an age cut-off - would really love it. Now, that happened to a degree. There is definitely an age cut-off, below which people get it; they embrace it, they love it. And, you can see some of the comments on the site - genuine comments - of that feedback. The group over that age cut-off - and I'm not going to say the cut-off in case I alienate people - people over that don't dislike it. They say, "It's not for me, but....." and they want to talk about it at length and they come up with all sorts of ideas as to how it could be used in other applications. So, with a different "skin" on it, it could be used for academic publishing. There's also the suggestion that it could be used to reintroduce a younger generation back to the joys of reading in the form of short stories. It could really excite them.
MB: So, we had a normal conventional book that we used to read on the beach and on the train - wherever you wanted to read it. Then we had eBooks - people reading books that way and it's becoming quite popular, and reading books on their iPads. This takes it one stage further does it?
RM: Yes, I think it does. And, before I go any further, when you start messing with a book, which is a perfect medium, you are going to get some stick. I just want to say that Will and I love books. We will take books on holiday with us until we die. But, once we'd had the idea, we had to see it through. So, eBooks came out, and all they did was reproduce a perfect medium in a digital form. And, the selling point is that you can have 1,500 books on your reader. Well, big deal. I don't take 1,500 books on holiday, so in some ways, they have solved a problem that didn't exist.
Pageramming - to me - is what eBooks should have been, because you can read it as a conventional novel, but if you want to dip in to it, and read the rams and visit places, you can. But, you don't have to. It's your choice.
MB: How do you read it? Do you have to be sat in front of a computer screen?
RM: Well, it's delivered via the screen of a computer. That can be a desktop or a laptop, but when Will and I first saw it on an iPad, we did nearly cry, because it really comes to life. It's brilliant. You've got the sound, the video - all the visual - and you can move around so easily with a tablet. I think that's where it belongs.
MB: So, the iPad was made for your invention. Or your invention was made for the iPad.
RM: We can come at it from either direction.
MB: Pageram.net - is that it? Have I got that right?
RM: Yes. I'd encourage everybody to take a look and I bet it will cause you to have an opinion.
MB: What's the name of your novel?
RM: We've called that "pageram" as well to really try and establish the word. It used to be called "That's all I need," but my friend pointed out that it sounded like a self-help book, and you can't have a suicidal readership; it's just not sustainable.
MB: Well, we look forward to what happens next, and I expect you do too. We don't know do we?
RM: No. It's a concept. We're trying to prove it, and quite often these things go off in directions that you really didn't foresee. We're quite excited about that, and we'll go where it takes us.
MB: And, we'll follow you. Thanks Rob, for coming in and telling us about pageramming. Remember where you heard it first - BBC Oxford.
[Switch to some angry people in Kidlington talking about traffic calming measures.]