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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Media companies plunging into ebooks

Interactive ebooks beckon

The excitement of this revolution in reading is attracting big media players, according to Digital Book World.

According to their latest report, the USA Today newsroom has produced its first ebook, USA Tomorrow, a compendium of expert predictions about what the future holds. The ebook is for sale for $1.99 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, the iBookstore and Kobo.

The content is based on a special section the newspaper launched in Sept. celebrating its 30th anniversary. “We plan to do more,” said David Callaway, editor-in-chief of USA Today.

USA Today joins a long list of non-book-publishing media companies to get into the ebook business in 2012. Most recently, Harlequin and Cosmopolitan magazine inked a deal to publish several ebooks a month together. Newsweek/Daily Beast entered into a partnership with Vook to publish ebooks. Playboy launched a series of shorts for the Kindle, the Washington Post announced an e-book program, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, a trade publication focused on the higher education field, launched an e-book business.

Other notable companies to jump into the space are magazine publishers Conde Nast and Hearst and NBC News, a division of NBC Universal.

From me -- have a look at Castlebuilders, to see what is possible right now, and what lies just over the horizon.

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