A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling: How to Captivate and Engage Audiences across Multiple Platforms

From a transmedia pioneer, the first major how-to strategy guide for using multiplatform storytelling to enhance brand value and engage customers More than a buzzword, transmedia storytelling -- the technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats, including gaming, social networking, and other media -- rapidly is becoming the go-to marketing strategy for businesses large and small. A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytelling,by award-winning speaker and creator, Andrea Phillips, is the practical, strategy-rich handbook for transmedia creators/entrepreneurs and marketing professionals who are trying to build or expand transmedia capabilities in established media businesses. This is the first major, comprehensive resource to feature concrete instruction on the principles of storytelling, audience engagement, platform selection, execution challenges, big-picture strategy and structural considerations -- as well as case studies of milestone transmedia projects and interviews with leading transmedia authorities and creators. Whether you're in game design and development, book publishing, film and television, or any other traditional or digital medium, A Creator's Guide to Transmedia Storytellingwill give you the tools and knowledge you need to create deeper forms of audience engagement.

Section I Introduction To Transmedia
1 Once Upon a Time...
2 What Is Transmedia, Anyway?
3 Transmedia is More Than a Marketing Gimmick
4 significant prior Art to Learn From
Section II Storytelling
5 The Four Creative Purposes for Transmedia Storytelling
6 Learn the Basics of Traditional Storytelling
7 How Story and Branding Affect Marketing
8 Writing for Transmedia is different
9 Online, Everything Is Characterisation
10 Conveying Action Across Multiple Media
Section III Structure
11 Fine-Tune for Depth or for Scale (Not Both)
12 Special Considerations for Blockbuster Transmedia Franchises
13 Interactivity Creates Deeper Engagement
14 Uses and Misuses for User-Generated Content
15 Challenging the Audience to Act
16 Make Your Audience a Character, Too
Section IV Production
17 Project Management: The Unsung Necessity
18 Finding and Keeping a Strong Core Team
19 Websites and Tech Development: DIY or Outsource?
20 Don’t Be a Jerk on Social Media
21 Email and Phone: Cheap and Effective
22 Making and Using Prerecorded Content
23 Bringing Your Story into the Real World
Section V The Big Picture
24 How to Fund Production Costs
25 … And Maybe Make Some Profit, Too
26 Forging Your Own Transmedia Career
27 Critical Legal and Ethical Considerations
28 Get excited and make things
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author