Posted by Meg Leder
Today, I have been fretful and nervous and excited—running around the building like Cinderella waiting for the ball, or a young book editor waiting for the first copy of the first book she edited. But I could probably be most accurately described as a somewhat seasoned editor waiting to hear how the first app she’s worked on will be received.
This morning, Apple released our interactive foray into the app world: Wreck This App. It’s based on Keri Smith’s phenomenally successful book Wreck This Journal, and like the book, the app invites users to explore their creative tendencies—drawing, scribbling, defacing, doodling, dripping, cutting, pasting, and more—without worrying about the end result.
The book has a hugely supportive online fan base, with readers sharing pictures of their Wrecked Journals on numerous Flickr and Facebook pages. So reaching out to them and new users through an app seemed like a natural next step for us.
The process has been a surprising exploration—much like engaging in one of Keri’s books. While a lot of it felt familiar—planning content, running ideas by the higher-ups, working with a team of smart people, writing copy, talking strategy with publicists—an equally large part has been like exploring a strange and foreign land.
I’ve had to rethink what it means to edit content when the medium is different and the available functionality is different (e.g. with the app, you can virtually drip water across the page, or smear colors together, or tap “holes” into the page). We’ve had to engage testers to try out the content multiple times—looking for bugs and confusing spots—along with having the text copyedited. Our team has reframed their publicity campaign, targeting tech bloggers and planning for pieces to run on pub date (vs. working long leads—a strategy that isn’t as useful with apps, as they aren’t available for preorders).
We’re all sitting here with our fingers crossed, because unlike answering a prompt in Wreck This Journal, the end result will count. But on the other hand, like engaging in the prompts in Keri’s beautiful book, we’ve learned some stuff along the way:
1) It helps to have guides. We’ve relied heavily upon the experience Penguin had with their incredible On the Road app, from targeting reviewers to pitching the app in-house.
2) It’s also good to have a developer who gets the project. Citrus Suite developed this app for us, and they responded with more enthusiasm than we could have hoped for to every single request and idea we shared. Plus, they brought their own ideas to the table, and helped us expand our original idea to something more.
3) It’s important to have an established fan base in place. While releasing an app into the world is a risky venture, we’re hopeful that Keri’s fans will embrace it in the same way they’ve always embraced her content: imaginatively and passionately. It’s like waving goodbye to a child on the first day of school; it’s less scary when you know your kid has friends already waiting for him or her on the bus.
4) It’s fun. Watching people try out the app—from a writer at Publishers Weekly, to my boss, to my colleague down the hall who said she’d bring the iPad back after twenty minutes but kept it for forty—it has been invigorating and inspiring to see people let loose on the screen, trying and creating and wrecking, and most of all enjoying.
For a peek at the app, check out: http://us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/keri_smith/wreck_this_app.html.
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