The three editions of one manuscript

An audio book is the book heard: a cast, sound design where the scene calls for it, a licensed score, mastered to retail specification. Priced here at 7.000000000000001% of the manuscript word count.

A film book is the book watched. A film book is the whole novel produced as cinema: fully cast voices, sound design, licensed score and motion imagery, cut scene by scene from the author's own text. Nothing is abridged and nothing is invented for it. Priced here at 12% of the word count — a 90,000-word novel is $10,800.

A novel-game is the book walked. A novel-game is a playable edition of a novel: one gate per chapter, walked in the author's own world, built from a blueprint surveyed out of the manuscript itself. Priced on a banded rate with a floor, because a game is engineering as well as art.

Why the word 'film book' is new and the thing is not

Every format arrives before its name settles. The talking picture was a 'photoplay' for a decade. The audio book was a 'talking book' for longer than that, and was sold on vinyl before it was sold on cassette, disc, download and stream.

A film book is a produced, complete, watchable edition of a novel. That thing is being made and sold now. The word for it is simply younger than the work, and this house uses it because a thing that exists deserves a name that is not three words of apology.

What an author should do about it

Nothing, until the audio edition exists — audio has the retail rails already built, the listeners already paying, and the lowest production cost of the three. Start there.

Then look at what audio cannot do for you: it cannot be watched on a phone in a feed, it cannot be a shareable trailer, and it cannot be played. A film book gives you the first two out of one production. A novel-game gives you something no other author in your genre is holding.

Asked and answered

Is a film book the same as an audiobook with pictures?

No. An audio book with a static cover on screen is a video upload. A film book is cast, scored, sound-designed and cut scene by scene as motion imagery, at 12% of the word count rather than 7%.

Is a film book the same as a book trailer?

No. A trailer is 30 to 90 seconds of advertising for the book. A film book is the whole book, running the full length of the story.

Do I have to choose between audio and film?

No. Every film book commissioned here carries the matching audio book edition of the same manuscript, because the cast performance underneath is the same performance.