An e-book tries some DVD like special features

Book publisher Harper Collins is releasing an e-book, Lady Amelia's Secret Lover by Victoria Alexander, that features author video commentary that pops up while you read. Is this interesting or annoying? I know that novelty of behind-the-scences features on DVD's has worn off for most people. Will e-books fare any better? Do you want the author popping up as you read to give her interpretation? Didn't she have her chance when she wrote the book in the first place? Or is this interesting and exciting? I suppose it depends on the author and what she has to say.

This reminds me of the hypertext novels at the turn of the millenium. (See The Unknown for example.) Only back then the authors seemed to be trying to do something more with the electronic book format. Hypertext novels allowed the reader to click on key words that interested them to find out more about that subject. In some ways it was like a hybrid of Wikipedia and Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Traditional books have long included maps, diagrams, figures and illustrations. Wouldn't it be cool to read Lord of the Rings and be able to reference a map that "updates" with the locations of characters depending on what page you access the map from? Maybe you could launch any song that is mentioned in the text just by clicking on it. There is a whole world of cool things you can do with electronic books, by far the least of which is author commentary. Let's hope that Lady Amelia's Secret Lover is a baby step in the right direction.

via Travelin' Librarian