In an indication of the extent to which digital publishing can empower new entrants from other parts of the media world, NBC News announced today that it is forming NBC Publishing. Based in New York, the unit is run by general manager Michael Fabiano, and they have hired Brian Perrin (who was at Rodale) as director of digital development, and Peter Costanzo (who was at F+W Media) as creative director. Fabiano reports to svp of NBC News Cheryl Gould, who is the “executive in charge” of NBC Publishing. She says in the announcement “this business enables NBC to use video, […]
eNews
Some Things iBooks Author Is, and Isn’t
After Thursday’s morning press conference, Apple published some online documentation that cleared up at least a few details regarding their new iBooks Author software. Once books are created, they can be offered for sale in the iBookstore (under its standard revenue split) or given away there for free. All books must be no larger than 2 GB (and the software can easily create very large files). Creators can also turn iBooks Author files into PDFs or iBooks documents that they can distribute independently–but only for free. Apple requires that if the ebooks are to be sold, “you must do so […]
Apple Launches iBooks2, “A New Textbook Experience For The iPad”, Opens Door to Self-Published Illustrated Books
Apple svp of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller led off Apple’s much-anticipated “education announcement” at New York’s Guggenheim Museum Thursday morning, before a strictly-limited but modestly-sized audience of about 150 invitees and members of the press. (Though focused on education, guests included multiple heads of trade houses.) “This is really special for everyone at Apple, because today’s event is about education. Education is deep in our DNA and has been from the very beginning.” Schiller said that “as students are starting to be introduced to iPad in learning, some really remarkable things are beginning to happen.” That was true to an […]
Briefs: Penguin’s “Strong Holiday As Pearson Ups Earnings Guidance; Grand Central’s New Digital Romance Imprint; and More
Pearson won’t report its preliminary annual earnings until February 27 but Thursday the company provided a short trading update indicating that for the year as a whole, Pearson generated approximately £2 billion in digital revenues and approximately £600m in revenues in emerging markets. They also expect to exceed their full year earnings guidance by 10 percent (with the original forecast being 83p per share), attributing the good news to “rapid growth in digital services, our expanding position in developing economies and the continuing transformation of our business portfolio.” Penguin’s results are said to be “strong” during the holidays, with expectations […]
eNews: Another Textbook Reader (From Chegg); eBooks Are 28% of Sourcebooks’ Sales; Cemetery Dance’s Digital Subscription; and More
Taking advantage of interest around Apple’s press conference tomorrow, textbook rental company Chegg is wading into the morass of too many proprietary ereading platforms for students with yet another product. Their cloud-based eTextbook Reader is HTML5-based, developed by 3D3R, an engineering team recently acquired by Chegg. The app is currently optimized for iPads and computers, though the company says other platforms are on the way. Their product uses publisher-supplied PDFs, and the company says they have about 40,000 textbooks available from all of the major publishers. (The WSJ says Kno claims about 150,000 titles, with options to either purchase or […]
McGraw-Hill Said to Have Second Pairing with Apple
You can expect the steady stream of speculation over Apple’s “education announcement” on Thursday at the Guggenheim Museum in New York to continue unabated. The WSJ cites a person “familiar with the matter” who says that McGraw-Hill “has been working with Apple on its announcement since June.” The paper notes that Cengage Learning, which has worked with Apple in the past, will attend Thursday’s event, though we imagine most educational and textbook publishers will as well. Ironically, the Journal doesn’t seem to recall that McGraw-Hill was supposed to be one of the marquee launch partners when the iPad debuted in early 2010, […]