I think that sounds intriguing- Placing the links to songs in the story line. Also, I would think that uploading a finished novel would be beneficial because I imagine people start reading various manuscripts that arent finished and then dont get back to added chapters for whatever reason. Im a newbie too but thats the sense Im getting after exploring.

Welcome!
I'm terribly curious to see how what you describe looks and sounds like. What I imagine is quite far from the traditional novel, but this is not a traditional corner of the metaverse either, is it. Like Jana, I'm a newbie here, so I don't really know anything, but this place is beginning to grow on me as I've commented on the work of others and they've begun to comment on mine—the secret sauce among creatives is always giving and getting.
I have not uploaded a complete book for two reasons (1) I don't want to foreclose the possibility of traditional publishing, and (2) my book isn't finished yet.
As a reader (would we call ourselves "red lemons"?), I cannot read entire books online, and I'm likely to dip in and out, look here and there & wait for a paper book or perhaps for a kindle version to come out. I might change as I'm getting more used to this.

Cheers from Berlin, Marcus Speh

Thanks, Jana and Marcus. Really appreciate your kind input! Sounds like I'm worrying unnecessarily about the links thing, though I guess it's a split decision on the chapters vs. whole ms. Anyway, best of luck to both of you in your own work!

Hey, Ben, it's really a coin toss on whether to post the whole MS or unroll it slowly. My thought on this is that readers here (myself included) can't always differentiate whether a MS is complete and ready for submission for publication (which encourages a certain type of feedback) or is a work in progress with chapters get posted as they are finished (which encourages a different type of feedback). My vote would be to post it all at once just as an additional indication to readers that the bad dog is fully realized. Quite a few of the manuscripts here have a musical backbone, though it sounds like you take it a couple more steps. Looking forward to reading and hearing the work!

Thanks so much for your kind input, Richard. Very interesting. I wouldn't have thought about that clarity as far as the kind of feedback, but it totally makes sense. I do see a lot more links and jpeg's and the like in the stories here (I was just enjoying some of Marcus's flash fiction.) Which, considering our newfound abilities in this realm--we're somewhat beyond the paper page at this point!--makes sense. Do you think this kind of mixed media, on, say, an iPad, is the future of writing? Seems both unlikely and obvious at once. I noted with interest this article about Murakami recently: http://mashable.com/2010/07/16/murakami-ipad-book/

I admit I have mixed feelings on mixed media, not because I am any kind of a purist or turning into some kind of old-timer talking about the good ol' days. I am all for e-readers and ipads. For me, they are not too different from books when it comes to a reading experience. But when it comes to mixing animations, video, music, etc. with writing, I am of two minds. There was an issue of McSweeneys a few years ago with instructions to look at some beautiful photographs of rocks while listening to a Philip Glass song on CD, and it created an amazing experience. The scene in Rushmore when the Who's 'A Quick One' ("you are forgiven") plays while Max Fisher and Bill Murray try to out-prank each other completely knocked my socks off, and that scene made both the movie and song better. I love the Large-Hearted Boy's Book Notes, in which authors provide soundtracks to their books. There are ways that multi-media can enhance writing (which sounds like what you are doing) and there are ways that multi-media can become a distraction and make poor writing seem better than it is. The nice thing about words on a page is you don't have an actor's voice making the writing sound better, you don't have printed (or moving) images showing you what the scene looks like. It's one of the reasons why writing well is so dang hard. Different art forms have different strengths, but words on a page is a form that is well developed enough that it doesn't need to be improved. I'm confident that we will see more "enhanced" books in the days ahead, and I am confident that readers won't lose their taste for a silent reading experience at the pace of their eyes tracking words across a page (or screen).

Totally agree. And I imagine enhanced books will be primarily a party trick in many cases. Though, as you say, there are some very interesting things going on in the mixed media world. (I'm a big fan of LHB's Cross Media Cultural Exchange series as well.) Author Wesley Stace--whose alter ego is singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding, and who for his LHB interviewed himself--recently did a collection of songs from his bestseller Misfortune. And he commissioned music for his newest book, as well, actually. Though I don't presume to put myself in such august company. Still, If You Look for My Heart is (I think!) the first of its kind...but Lord knows whether I pull it off. (Does it sound like I'm stalling? I am. :)

OK, I got up the gumption, and have uploaded a few chapters (Richard and Jana, I think your points are spot on--but I also feel like I want to take things a little slowly at first.) Not sure if I managed the hyperlinks in the most elegant way, but you can hear two of the songs from the album in the first two chapters. I'd be grateful if you guys have a moment to take a look, but in any case, thanks very much for the counsel.