Michael Betcherman has agreed to do an interview for the 247 sites. He is the co-author of The Daughters of Freya which is a breakthrough email mystery eBook.
The mystery is told through emails exchanged between journalist Samantha Dempsey and the other characters. But instead of reading these emails in a book, they'll be delivered straight to your inbox, just as if the characters have copied you on the emails they're sending to each other.
You'll receive a few emails at random times every day over the three weeks that it takes for the mystery to unfold. The suspense will build as the mystery hurtles towards its conclusion. But you won't be able to turn the page to find out what happens next ... you'll have to wait for the next email to arrive.
Hi Michael. Obvious question first- why not just sell The Daughters of Freya as a paper or eBook like everyone else?
Originally my co-author, David Diamond, and I intended to publish this in print. But in the summer of 2003 I was on a cycling trip in British Columbia with a friend. One night we were killing time in a bar and I told him about the project. He stopped me in mid-sentence and said, "don't publish the emails in a book. Send them out as email, a few every day. As if the reader is experiencing the mystery in real time." It seemed like a brilliant idea at the time but it was late at night and we were staring at a table littered with empty beer bottles. When it still seemed like a brilliant idea in the morning, I called David, who signed on without a moment’s hesitation. David and I ran with it, but the credit for the idea goes to my long-time friend Jake Onrot.
Has it been successful so far in comparison to what you hoped for?
We only launched a few months ago so we still have a long way to go but the reception so far has gone way beyond our expectations. We knew it was a cool idea, mainly because everybody we told about it said "hey, that's a cool idea." But we didn't dare anticipate - except in our more megalomaniacal moments - how well received it would be by readers and by critics. Every single review has been positive, which either means we're on to a good thing, or reviewers are a lot more charitable than they're given credit for. We've been featured in the Toronto Globe and Mail and the Boston Herald and several other newspapers. And the other day Cory Doctorow at boingboing, the top-ranked blog, gave us a rave review. Readers have been equally enthusiastic. Many have written to say they're experiencing 'withdrawal symptoms' when the book ends. We send out a survey after the book ends and 75% of the readers are rating us 4 or better on a scale of 1-5.
Do you expect PDA users to be purchasing it alongside desktop users and what’s your views on eBooks? Do you think they will ever replace paper books?
It's one of the questions we ask in our survey and so far only a handful of readers have used PDAs to read the emails. I don't know enough about the market to interpret this. How many PDA's are there compared to desk tops? The installments are email length so there's no reason why the mystery wouldn't work for this group. But that's just a guess on my part. I'd be very interested to know what PDA users thought.
I don't have any personal experience with eBooks so whatever I have to say can be safely ignored. But I do think they're a terrific idea and I can see how they'd be great in certain situations, for example for people who are on the road a lot. I think they're a great addition to the reading arsenal but doubt they'll replace paper books, at least not in the near future.
You are a writer and a filmmaker, you were and entertainment lawyer and also a professional basketball player. Are you one of those people who is good at everything he tries i.e. the type of person the rest of us hate:)
Or, as some have suggested, just someone who can't make up his mind what he wants to do?
What’s the best book you have read and the best song you have ever heard?
Tough question. Lost Horizon. Stairway to Heaven. Ask me tomorrow and I'll probably say something else.
Do you own a PDA and if not, why not?
Don't own one, mostly because I don't leave the house much.
Do you view the internet as a good thing or would you like to turn back time to when the world was a bigger place?
I am totally in love with the Internet. Never thought I would be as I do have a fair bit of the Luddite in me. As a writer, research is crucially important to me and I'm constantly amazed at what I can find out without having to get out of my chair. Socially, it's a double-edged sword. Thanks to email, I keep up with people I would otherwise have lost touch with but when my wife on the 2nd floor started emailing me on the 1st floor I had to wonder if things were getting out of hand. And it can be counter-productive. How many times have you emailed somebody back and forth when it would have been much quicker to do whatever had to be done by picking up the phone? Still, if I ever do go back in time, I'm bringing my laptop with me.
What’s the best piece of feedback for ‘Freya’ you have received so far?
The most gratifying part has been the response from readers. As cool as the idea is, at the end of the day we're telling a story and if people don't like it, then we haven't done our job as writers. Yesterday I got this email from one of our readers: "man oh MAN i'm on the 13th e-mail and I'm loving this and going out of my HEAD waiting for the next e-mail." Made my day.
If this project is successful will you be doing another similar project?
Definitely. The format can be adapted to virtually any genre, and to suit every segment of the reading public. We've got a couple of other projects in development but right now we're focusing on marketing the mystery.
Anything you would like to add?
Just want to thank you for giving me this opportunity. If any of your readers are interested, a preview with the first three emails is available at www.emailmystery.com.
My thanks to Michael for taking the time to talk to us. If you are considering signing up, remember that this works just as well on a PDA and like the reader above I am also on my 13th email- this is such a simple and brilliant idea and really does get you hooked....
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