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Hello everyone! I joined this lovely online book club just a few minutes ago, so please pardon me if this isn't in the right section of the forum. I'm experimenting with a new book concept and I'd like to get your opinion on the same before implementing it.

I've been a professional writer for well over a decade, although I stuck to ghostwriting and blogging for the most part. Given today's advancements in technology, I've been toying with the idea of creating an interactive eBook. Rather than browsing through the book like a mute spectator, the reader would be actively involved in making decisions throughout the story. These would change the storyline accordingly, allowing readers to alter the sequence of events and influence some of the outcomes. This doesn't mean that a decision would need to be made on each and every page, although some scenes that involve solving a mystery or may engage the reader much more frequently than, say, a backstory.

Also, what would you think if the pages in the eBook had a background, border and instrumental music corresponding to the current theme so as to enhance the effect of the words? For example, a dark, sinister scene may feel more unnerving if the page had a dark, eerie background corresponding to the location described in the book along with creepy background music.

This is the first time I'll be attempting something like this, so I would greatly appreciate any advice you'd like to offer.

I think this is a fascinating concept. It reminds me of those early role playing computer games in which the options taken by the player directed the course of the game. The changing background and music is also an interesting idea, but I would make these individually optional because some people might be unduly distracted by either or both. I might add an "on / off" or "volume control" for the music. I think this concept would be of interest to any age group, but might have particular marketability in regard to children's e-books.

What makes the idea particularly interesting to me is that you can REREAD the book many times taking different paths thus effecting different outcomes. I can imagine a version of the book Pride And Prejudice with Darcy being friendly to Elizabeth Bennet at the onset of the novel, or perhaps an even more interesting path for the novel to take would be for Mr. Bingly to become infatuated with Miss Bennet and thus creating a later conflict between Bingly and Darcy. A book like this would have far greater value than the standard novel because it is actually MANY books in one. It would also be a far greater writing task for the author because each of the paths taken by the reader requires many new rivulets of construction to be written into the story. I think the idea would work best with the short story and this might be the best place to begin. Just my opinion.

Good luck with your project.

Thanks DATo! Indeed, I was afraid about the music being a bit distracting to some. Having an option to turn it on or off sounds like a plan.

And yes, the role paying games of the good old days were, indeed, the inspiration behind this initiative.

Sounds more like a video game to me. In the Steam store they're tagged as visual novels. There probably is a market for this type of thing, but I'm not sure how big the intersection is between that and readers of regular ebooks.