Big name authors are getting iPhone apps to promote their books, and so the dreaded compound Businese word “value-added” rears its fugly head in the book world. Soon editors and proof readers will be dubbing voice-over tracks to the text so as you read you can have a “bonus” commentary… “You should have seen how he plotted this the first time… I mean, over and over, and time shifts and sequence problems. Haha. He was just such an idiot. The best day of his life was when I was assigned to this thing, I tell you. Hah.. Good times.” Blooper reels, here we come.

In March the number of books available as iPhone apps passed the number of games for the first time. “It was a tipping point,” says digital editor Dan Franklin at rival publisher Canongate. “The plan is now to be creating something you can only experience digitally” — something which, he admits, defies the instincts of a publisher. “It’s our next challenge [but] it’s difficult,” he says.

TradeMobile’s Bowe feels the “companion” approach works particularly well for fiction. “Tolkien for example would be amazing,” he says. “Really for authors with rich, detailed characters and locations it’s great.”

(Hmm. I wonder if there’s a little local poet guy who might get his own iPhone app, say this August…….? Hmmmm…..? ……… Wait for it… WAIT FOR IT…!)