Forget YA, It's Time for Junior Versions

With the power of AI, we can easily have cyber-scholiasts produce commentary for our fantasy and science fiction so that never again will a reader have to struggle with subtext. The only question is whether the AI commentary should be more or less expensive. On the one hand, it's an extra feature. On the other hand, the unadorned versions will now be premium items which make the reader feel smarter, an eight-dollar value at least.

Addendum

That old sailor is a sea god, but you won't find that out for a few books, or maybe in an interview.

Number One Reason to Include a Map in Your Book

Your characters can flip to it if they get lost. Nobody wants to wait fifty pages while they try to remember what they heard about stars once from an old sailor.

Addendum

I'm not saying wizards aren't real, but if I can pretend to raise a dog, reality is demonstrably no bar.

The Age of Videogames Is Ended

Now that we know what the next generation's prices are going to be, people will finally realize that instead of paying $500 to pretend to race, they should spend $20 to pretend wizards are real. Let's just hope they never find out they can pay $0 to read a history of Cuba written in 1920.

We Don't Have a Reading Achievement System

At least I don't. I bet somebody out there does and is keeping it from the rest of us. I'm talking about points, not that Sony trophy nonsense that simply isn't as good.

The Problem Facing Books Today

They don't have theme songs. They definitely need them.

The Latest Book Technology

Already sensors are being implanted which measure how long the reader looks at certain sentences and dynamically writes new pages based on that information to create infinite stories.

Truly Avant-Garde Fantasy

The book contains a map, but not of where the story takes place. Daring! Cheeky, even!

Novel Formatting

How about we put the main narrative on every other page and then fill the other one with a chorus commenting on the action? That's hard to do digitally, which means physical books can have a point again.

The Next Thing in Publishing

The page margins will be made up to look like it's a heads-up display, periscope, binoculars, or other immersive framing. For fantasy? Illegible marginalia.

How to Name Your Chapters

In this fast-paced, born-late-die-early-supernova world, what readers want is for the chapter title to say exactly what's going to happen so they don't have to read the rest of it. Studies have shown that nobody likes reading anyway.

The Problems of Technology

Since ebooks display pages inconsistently, it's impossible to have a page that just says "LOOK OUT! A SPOOKY SKULL!"

Reflections on the End of Service Announcement for Alice Fiction

It should have been some unbearably twee novel that people recommend for three months before everybody forgets it exists.

Psychology and Cover Design

If your book's cover shows a bunch of people reading your book, everyone else will want to read it too. Think about it.

Addendum

The other innovation, which is a camera button readers can press to switch perspectives on the scene, is so far impractical because writers are unbelievably lazy. AI, however . . .

Fresh Fields of Technological Inquiry

Already experiments are being conducted in selectable difficulty levels for books. The effect? The enemies get more HP. More research is necessary.

A Terrible Secret

They don't want you to know this, but here in the digital era, books are judged entirely on their file size. Keep trying to hit that magic number, fellas! No, they won't tell you what it is.

How to Make Your Book More Cinematic

Now that we don't use physical books, you can put your text at a Dutch angle. How unsettling!

An Important Warning

How often should books remind the reader to rest his eyes, do his homework/chores/social climbing, and get around to setting up those cameras? Every fifteen pages?