From: Clients from Hell.net
Client: I love the flyer you sent! It’s clicky! Me: Great! So we’re done now? Client: No. When I print out the flyer, the links aren’t clicky. Can you make them clicky? Me: I don’t understand. Client: I want to be able to go to our website … when … um, when I … Me: You do know that a piece of paper can’t be interactive, right?
Phil: I read (on-line) the posting above at the same time as I was reading (on-paper) “Who Goes There – Travels through strangest Britain in search of the Doctor” by Nick Griffiths, and it struck a chord.
I enjoy travel books. Sometimes they make me want to go and see the places described. Mostly my traveling is vicarious but none the worse for that. I also love Dr Who. Put the two together and we should have a winner – right?
Wrong.
Even once you get past the stream of consciousness writing style (it calms down after the first few chapters) and the lack of capital letters in the title (Grrrr) there is a fundamental problem with the book. The author keeps referring readers to his website so they can see photos of the location he visits. That’s lovely but I was reading on a train and so constantly being pointed at a web page was a reminder that I was missing out on a good chunk of the fun to be had from Griffiths travels.
To compound matters, he keeps referring to Who episodes that I don’t remember. I mean, I love classic Who, but I don’t have an encyclopedic memory of a TV show I watched when I was 5 or even one from before I was born. I’m nerdy, but not that nerdy. Thus, I often have no idea what the location being visited looks like ‘cos I’ve not seen it on telly or on the web.
Frustrating. Very.
But, Candice and I were chatting about this over tea and squash earlier in the week, more and more people are reading on eBooks. Travel on the tube in that there London and you’ll hardly see the traditional paperback. It’s all iPads and Kindles now.
These are perfect for a book like this. If I want to see the picture, I can click on a link and assuming I’m not in a signal-free tunnel, up the photo will pop. If licensing were possible, even a clip from the show could be included. All this makes writing a rather more involved job than traditional, but it creates a very different type of book/website hybrid that could be very exciting.
None of this works (for me) on paper but it does beg a question. If the eBook/website hybrid is the way things are going, has this book about a time traveller fallen back through a wormhole from a few years in the future?
nolanparker 
You’re so 90’s dearies. Haven’t you seen those square pixel things on ads and posters? Point your mobile at them and you are taken straight to the web site. I was looking at a book on animal drawing and that had a square thingy on every page.
QR codes? You’ve still got to stand with the book in one hand and a computer in the other. And on the tube with no mobile signal? They’re just decoration.