Papercut Shows us the Future of Publishing

 ustwo™ is a digital entertainment and design studio that delivers the UI/UX design, app development and content creation for global brands. They are singularly focused on releasing their own entertainment products in the form of apps, books and games. With almost 100 people working in Malmö and London (New York later this year) transforming digital publishing, ustwo™ is shaking up how we consume and provide content as the new and next generation of publishers.

Actually, the co-founder of ustwo™, who is known as "mills", says that they create content for "amazing" global brands. He's like that, well THEY are like that.  The innovative start up is bursting with passion for everything they do and it comes through in everything they touch including their first digital children's book, Nursery Rhymes with Storytime which launched three months ago.Nursery Rhymes was  “App of The Week” for iPad and iPhone, in both UK and the US. Pretty much the entire online community went a little nutty for the app, children included, and it was the buzz du jour among old school publishing houses. They were mostly stunned that you could take the look and feel of classic children's stories and make them come alive on a tablet or Smartphone. It's as if someone finally turned on the light for them.

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"Nursery Rhymes is a great example of the rapid change we’re seeing in the publishing industry at the moment," said mills. "Because of all the noise it generated, for several weeks Nursery Rhymes was the number one selling book and more importantly the highest grossing book app on the App Store (generating at best £2500 a day globally)."

According to mills, he believes the ke

Nursery Rhymes by Storytime

y to Nursery Rhymes success was not only the craft and love behind creating it in the first place, but the Storytime feature which allows users to remotely read to their kids. Again, transferring a traditional activity of reading with your children from a physical book to duplicating that experience digitally, complete with touch, topped with interactivity with the page, words and sound.

"Apples’ App Store has allowed developers like ustwo™ to question for the first time exactly who the publisher is. We had no previous experience in publishing books, but with our first attempt, we had secured a number one spot on both sides of the Atlantic. That in itself has created a huge stir in the industry," adds mills.

That's true.  There is an intense debate right now about the transformation of traditional media/publishing and how or if it will compete with digital media. As Ben Franklin said, the power of the press belongs to those that own one. With the advent of the internet, social media and the like, everyone has a megaphone. Everyone is a publisher now.

"We're constantly being flooded with reports, statistics and conferences about the future of publishing at the moment, but it’s crystal clear for us - the industry is going from paper to screen and it's happening right now. We’re seeing a lot of chat about how traditional publishing houses have to change to keep up with digital media. Nowadays it's all about speed, investment in the future and new platforms, global rights and new kinds of storytelling techniques. This means that unfortunately for publishing houses they have to deal with the new kids on the block, the new breed of competitor - companies like ustwo™."

mills says that it cost about £60,000 to develop Nursery Rhymes, and they are about half way to recouping that initial investment,  a mere three months later. To you this might not sound so good, but they are happy about it because they believe that it is still better than what their publishing counterparts are recouping.

ustwo™ wants to be a thought leader, they want to be the first to offer users great experiences, they pride themselves on delivering an experience the user can't live without. They believe there is no other point in developing it if there is not a good user experience in it for them. And so Nursery Rhymes has become their line in the sand and it's also where they got the idea for their next digital publishing adventure, Papercut.

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ercut is a publishing platform designed and developed to create a short story experience for users, somewhere between  plain text and a full-on movie. The platform will go live at the beginning of August.

"Working in collaboration with Shortfire Press, we invited three of the top British authors – Richard Beard, Nadifa Mohamed and Laura Dockrill to the Papercut platform. Working closely with our team of developers and visual and audio designers, they are going to take the art of story telling to the next level, creating truly immersive reading experiences," said mills.

"Authors, editors and readers are very closely connected with the process of simply reading a book. The book represents their love of storytelling and literature, and to some extent how they even see themselves. If you

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remove that element, in a way you’re questioning their identity," said mills. "At the moment we’re still seeing many in the industry confuse books with reading. But to us, books are just a format, a container, and the key thing to remember is and always has been the reading experience."

"Paper cut is simply about enhancing the reading experience by merging text with audio, visual and interactive elements. It's not rocket science," adds mills.