Music files book may sound the end for paper books

The future of instructional paper books may be hanging in the balance with the explosion in ‘smart’, media-rich, interactive digital books, or eBooks. Leading the assault is a new edition by Cheshire based publisher, Cool Publications, which takes the interactivity of eBooks, particularly instructional ones to a new level.

Will Brazier-Smith’s instructional book, Learn to Play the Guitar in 5 Days, is a cutting-edge eBook that fuses the best of the interactivity of the internet with the high-end formatting of the printed page to create a book that not only guides you through the normal words-and-pictures route of learning to play the guitar but also gives you the sound files necessary to tune your instrument and learn to hear what your efforts should sound like.

"Will is an experienced, working guitarist with more than two decades’ work under his belt. His ability to break down complex issues on learning to play the electric guitar effectively into easy-to-grasp, practical advice means that within five days you can really go from zero to competent guitar playing," says editor Roy Taylor who worked with Will on the book.

In a cutting-edge production effort Cool Publications have released Learn to Play the Guitar in 5 Days as a fully interactive media-rich book on CD and download format. In the tradition of the cutting-edge publishing house, the CD contains a host of extra features ranging from unique screensavers to help you customise your PC to MP3 and Wave-format tracks composed especially by the book’s author, music videos that accompany some of his albums and free digital magazines and Reader software.

The book is further supported by lifetime email support by its author. "It was a big step deciding on this," recalls Roy Taylor, "in the end we agreed that learning to play the guitar tunes in the book was the first step in any music lover’s life and there well could be questions they’d feel they want to ask which are outside the scope of the book."

Looking at the sleek way Learn to Play the Guitar in 5 Days works one can now say that the future is truly digital.