Cathy’s Book Trilogy Comes to a Close

By John A. Sellers -- Publishers Weekly, 5/28/2009

The Cathy’s Book trilogy is wrapping up this month, and as befits a series that’s had a strong interactive element from the outset, Cathy’s Ring, the third and final book, is being heavily promoted by publisher Running Press—online and off.

Like its predecessors—Cathy’s Book and Cathy’s Key—the new title comes packaged with “evidence” (in this case, a glow-in-the-dark poster and Cathy’s actual ring), as well as Web-based components. The publisher has created a video trailer for the new book, featuring an original song, “I’ve Lost My Way: Cathy’s Song,” which factors into the story as well. Both the video and a free downloadable MP3 of the song are available at the Cathy’s Ring Web site, which also offers discussion forums, activities and links to “Cathy’s” MySpace, Facebook and Flickr pages.

To promote Cathy’s Ring, Running Press enlisted the help of Expanded Apps to create iPhone apps for the series, which will contain the text of the books and utilize the iPhone’s phone and internet access, as well as touch/motion sensitivity (phone numbers, Web sites and videos will be embedded within the text in the apps). The apps are scheduled to go on sale during the third week of June. The house is also running a sweepstakes with prizes that include a Nintendo Wii and an iPod Touch.

Although this series is coming to an end, Running Press has additional multi-platform, interactive projects in the works: Weisman’s middle-grade Nanovor series is scheduled to launch in September with the publication of two books: Hacked, a novel, and Nanovor: Welcome to the Nanosphere, a field guide. A self-contained handheld Nanovor video game will be available simultaneously at toy stores, and a third book (also a novel) is planned for spring 2010. Running Press has also signed Weisman’s Lost Souls trilogy, which has a board game component and will be published in spring 2010.