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Random House Group announces enhanced ebooks
April 19, 2009 | 6:27 pm
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By Paul Biba
Received the following press release from Random House. The ebook march goes on!
The Random House Group is today launching the first list of ‘enhanced’ ebooks to be released by a major UK publisher. Announced on the first day of the annual London Book Fair, ‘Book and Beyond’ explores the opportunities and new reading experiences which the digital format can offer to book lovers and new readers alike.
The enhanced ebooks offer readers a range of additional content such as videos, games, quizzes, photos, author interviews, interactive graphics and the option to listen to or read the text at the start of each chapter. The initial list of ten enhanced ebooks includes titles from popular authors such as James Patterson, Danny Wallace and Derren Brown. More enhanced ebooks from Irvine Welsh, Katie Price and other bestselling authors are planned for later this year.
The launch list includes a variety of exciting additional content: readers who download Lee Child thriller Nothing to Lose can watch an exclusive animated graphic novel which shows Jack Reacher reacting to a possible suicide bomber on a subway train; young fans of Jacqueline Wilson title My Sister Jodie can play a ‘catch the ghosts’ game (see attached image) or take a quiz to find out if they are a ‘good girl’ or a ‘rebel’; and those who download international bestseller The Book Thief by Markus Zusak can decide whether to read or listen to the book at the beginning of each chapter. More information about all the books and their content can be found at www.bookandbeyond.com.
The ‘Book and Beyond’ list is available from Waterstones.com, WHSmith.co.uk, and rbooks.co.uk. Whilst standalone ebook readers cannot currently play the additional rich media content, they can easily be played on PCs, Macs and laptops.
Fionnuala Duggan, Director, Random House Group Digital, said: “The development of the ebook presents a tremendous opportunity for us to create new reading experiences. We are experimenting with ways to create new interactive content which will not only appeal to traditional book lovers, but will also reach out to a brand new readership.”
Jonathan Davis, Digital Publisher, Random House Group Digital, said: “As the popularity of reading on digital devices takes hold we want to lead and develop the market by ensuring that we have exciting and engaging content available, however and wherever the audience wants it.”
RHG authors on ‘Book and Beyond’:
* James Patterson: “Packaging ebooks with additional, interactive, digital content is a great way to engage readers. I’m always interested in exploring ways of attracting people to my novels.”
* Danny Wallace: “I’m very pleased to be amongst the first to be involved in this Book and Beyond initiative, and for one of my books to get the multimedia treatment. It’s a fantastic way of doing something new, exciting, and valuable.”
* Lee Child: “In the future both writers and readers will interact with books, stories and characters – and each other – in wholly new ways, and I congratulate Random House for asking the questions and supplying the first answers.”This is the latest in a series of digital initiatives launched by The Random House Group, including an online toolkit for authors to create their own web pages; a ‘browse and search’ widget and an online recommendation service for children’s books.
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Comments:
The games and the graphic novel segments and whatever else they come up with to “enhance” the ebooks are all very nice, but this reader would be much happier to see more titles issued as simple text at rational prices and made available from plenty of vendors.
It would be terrific to see them finally do ALL of the Modern Library and Everyman’s Library titles as ebooks (I’ve given up hope of ever seeing John D. MacDonald or Ross MacDonald or Jon Hassler.) To my surprise, they did issue three V. S. Pritchett titles over the last year — Essential Stories, Mr. Beluncle, and The Pritchett Century. Bought all three the minute I saw them listed, and I’m glad I did. Essential Stories has now disappeared from Books on Board’s list; The Pritchett Century has a hardcover price set on it even though the title was issued in ML paperback years ago. Everyman’s Library editions of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm had recently been available as ebooks, and the big collection of his essays and journalism had been announced — the essays volume was never released in e, and 1984 and Animal Farm no longer show available. Paul, you’d been interested in an ebook of Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy during the MobiPocket/Overdrive kerfluffle, if memory serves — hope you bought it then, because it doesn’t appear to be available now.
The ebook march may be going on, but with titles from a major publisher being here one day and gone the next (when they’re issued in e at all), I’m not always sure which way it’s going.
Bests,
–tr
Heh… what’s next, action figures? Although I admire their intent, a lot of these extras sound like the kind of things you’d package in a kid’s DVD, to give them something to do when they aren’t reading your book (which, in this case, I expect will be most of the time).
We’ll take low prices and common formats, thanks.
It sounds really fun and clearly RH is trying to emphasize the “e” portion of ebooks, a move that I applaud. I went to the Books and Beyond site to try to download one, though, and they’re not viewable on ereaders! Because of the size of the files, they can only be viewed (and listened to) on a computer. I’m a huge fan of ebooks … but not on my computer!
It would be interesting to know how the Random House enhanced e-books are doing after more than a year on the market. I think publishers don’t really have a choice to follow this route but the internet is such a different place from traditional publishing that it is often a shame to see publishers not make full use of all the enormous opportunities it offers. It might be worth reading my short blog (http://www.grinlock.com/controllers/controller.page.php?action=page_redirect&pg_id=47) on the subject and to also to click through this short presentation(http://www.grinlock.com/presentations/onlinebusiness_presentation.html) on the dynamics of online business sites.