Publishers bet future on iPad they haven’t yet seen

April 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – Publishers are placing big bets that Apple Inc’s iPad will kick-start a commercially viable transition to digital magazines and newspapers — even though few executives have laid hands on the tablet ahead of launch.

Technology | Media

In fact, many publishers likely will not announce their iPad applications until after the tablet hits U.S. stores on Saturday, due to the many constraints that Apple has placed on allowing its partners access to the device.

While media content is critical to the success of the iPad — a 9.7-inch tablet that looks like a large iPhone and aims to bridge the gap between a smartphone and a laptop — Apple has been typically secretive about its plans.

Media executives say they have had to test out the iPad in situ at Apple’s Cupertino, California office, or agree to extremely restrictive security measures to get one off-site.

“We were offered the opportunity to have an iPad in the building but the security implications were so high, it wasn’t worth it,” said one publisher who did not want to be identified ahead of the iPad launch.

Only a lucky few received a personal visit from Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who was in New York earlier this year to show off the iPad to a few publishers including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Despite the restrictions, the iPad’s full color touchscreen is seen as a game changer for media companies that have long struggled to make money off digital content, which most consumers expect to get for free or at a very low cost.

Book publishers see a new chance to get their electronic offering right — and win more bargaining power if the iPad emerges as a viable rival to Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle.

“We have all struggled in this industry to find an online model that works successfully in terms of content and the consumer’s propensity to pay,” Penguin Books Chief Executive John Makinson told a recent media conference in London.

“I think myself that the iPad represents the first real opportunity to create a paid model that will be attractive to consumers. and I think the psychology around payment on tablet is different from the psychology around payment on PCs.”

Penguin will share 30 percent of its revenue from e-book sales for iPads with Apple, which Makinson said is better than the 50 percent that publishers typically pay to book retailers including Amazon.

“On balance, that’s not bad. Plus we get some consumer data, we get some growth, we don’t have marketing investment,” he said.

MEDIA APPS

Time Warner Inc plans to unveil a full edition of Time magazine for the iPad launch. It will cost the same as the print copy at $4.95 and feature advertisers including Unilever, Toyota Motor Corp and Fidelity Investments among others.

Time Inc Senior Vice President Monica Ray said the magazine will eventually sell digital subscriptions, and is working on iPad versions of People, Sports Illustrated and other titles.

The Financial Times is working on an iPad application that it expects to be ready around the end of April, when the tablet will be sold overseas, including some European markets, and when a version with 3G wireless connectivity will be launched.

The FT’s iPad app will be free to download and for the first two months, readers will be able to get a free trial of ft.com, thanks to sponsor Hublot, the maker of Big Bang watches owned by luxury group LVMH.

After the first two months, the regular ft.com access model will kick in: users must register to read up to 10 articles a month for free, or pay between 170 and 260 pounds ($256 to $391) per year for a subscription.

That compares with $17.99 per month or $126 a year for the iPad version of News Corp’s Wall Street Journal, according to a source quoted in the Journal.

Like many publishers, the FT prefers iPad’s direct-app sales model to that offered by Amazon: Kindle readers have to buy publications through the Kindle store and share revenue with Amazon.

“Importantly, the app model gives us the ability to retain a direct relationship with our customer and the ability to determine pricing,” FT CEO John Ridding said in an email.

The FT, which is part of British media group Pearson, has already had 250,000 downloads of its iPhone app.

Thomson Reuters Corp will also have an advertising-funded iPad app at the launch, sponsored by FedEx. The company plans other subscription-based apps aimed at customers in the financial, legal and medical spheres.

Brian Murray, chief executive of News Corp’s book publisher Harper Collins, said even though he has only seen the iPad twice, and for a short while, he felt that book publishing would benefit immensely from Apple’s expertise.

“Apple has demonstrated over the years that they can really expand the market,” said Murray. “The iPad represents a dramatic step forward in terms of handheld devices.”

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke in New York and Georgina Prodhan in London; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Palin’s next hand will determine how well book sales do

July 10, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New York, July 9 (ANI): How Sarah Palin plays her next hand, politically or otherwise, will determine how well books about her or written by her will do in the publications market, the Politico reports.

Earlier this year, Palin inked a deal with HarperCollins for her memoir, due out in spring 2010. Washington lawyer Robert B. Barnett helped her secure an advance that has been reported to be several million dollars. He says that the actual sales of her story, however, will depend entirely on how she plays her next hand.

“If she has an eye on 2012, she probably will write a carefully worded, bland policy book that won’t make headlines,” said Bernadette Malone, a former editor at Penguin Books.

“If she’s not running for president in 2012, she can write a much more candid book that’s likely to get attention from both the press and the public. She can explain the real reason she resigned the governorship, and she can talk about how badly she was treated by specific people in the media and the John McCain campaign.”

More than 20 titles are available on Amazon.com, though most are published by little-known companies and take a highly partisan tone. The unusual series of titles range from “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down” (Tyndale House Publishers) to “TheoPalinism: The Face of Failed Extremism” (Vervante) and “Terminatrix: The Sarah Palin Chronicles” (Collins). Palin has even gotten the comic book treatment; like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and first lady Michelle Obama, Palin is the star of an edition of the “Female Force” series.

At least five more books, including Palin’s own, are in the works. But her name splashed across a book no longer guarantees a hit.

“Her resignation will help books about her if they come out soon – and it will hurt her own book, unless she has something up her sleeve,” said Marion Maneker, a former vice president at HarperCollins.

“On the face of it, the resignation is bad for her own book because it takes her out of the political action.”

Palin’s resignation reinforces one of the key reasons that publishers were quick to arrange for books on the subject: Better to strike now, while the iron is hot, than wait to see if she runs for president in 2012.

Palin will likely remain a lightning rod for years to come, and therefore an attractive subject for publishers. (ANI)

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Two thirds of Brit teens don’t believe in God

June 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, June 23 (ANI): Nearly two thirds of Brit teenagers say they don’t believe in the existence of God, according to a new survey.

The study led by Penguin books to mark this week’s publication of controversial novel ‘Killing God’ by Kevin Brooks has shown that half of teenagers have never prayed and 16 per cent have never been to church.

The book is about a 15-year-old girl who questions the existence of God.

Almost 59 per cent of the youngsters said that religion “has a negative influence on the world”.

“I can’t say I am surprised by the teenagers’ responses,” the Telegraph quoted author Kevin Brooks as saying.

“Part of the reason that I wrote Killing God was that I wanted to explore the personal attitudes of young people today, especially those with troubled lives, towards organised religion and the traditional concept of God.

“How can the moralities of an ancient religion relate to the tragedies and disorders of today’s broken world? And why do some people turn to God for help while others take comfort in drugs and alcohol?” he added.

The survey involving 1000 respondents aged 13 to 18 years revealed that 55 per cent of young people are not bothered about religion and 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening.

Teenagers believe that family, friends, money, music and even reality television are more important than religion.

Only 30pct believe in an afterlife, while 41 per cent say nothing happens to your body when you die,

“Many teenagers aren’t sure what they believe at that stage of their lives, as is clear from the number who said they don’t know whether they believe in God,” said a Church of England spokesman.

“On the other hand many of these results point to the great spirituality of young people today that the Church is seeking to respond to through new forms of worship alongside tradition ones,” the spokesman added. (ANI)

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Indians beginning to enjoy crime fiction, says author Etteth

April 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New Delhi, April 7 (IANS) Thriller and horror story writer Ravi Shankar Etteth, who has woven his new whodunit around freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, says Indians are just beginning to enjoy and appreciate crime fiction.

‘Why do people in this country say crime stories and thrillers are inferior? It is literature. So long as you can give intelligent people a good read, you should not care. I dislike passionate intellectuals who don’t live their lives,’ Etteth told IANS.

Etteth is an emerging name in the fledging genre of thrillers and supernatural fiction in the country. His third novel ‘The Gold of Their Regrets’, a thriller based on a fictitious tale of Netaji’s last flight from India, was launched by veteran journalist Vir Sanghvi here Monday.

‘I think Indians are just starting to have fun and appreciate crime fiction,’ said the writer, who is also the group editor of the Voice of India television network.

‘The Gold of Their Regrets’ begins on Aug 18, 1945, when the commander of the Indian National Army (INA) boards a Mitsubishi-K1-21 bomber to fly east to Manchuria and crashes into the heart of a jungle in Myanmar with 30 million pounds in gold.

Only three men know the truth behind the crash and what happened to the gold that disappeared mysteriously. Sixty years later, a stranger stalks these men, seeking the lost gold and revenge.

‘I wrote my first ghost story at Leila aunty’s (novelist Vikram Seth’s mother) sprawling hilltop home in Shimla, where I was vacationing in the early 80s. She was the chief justice of Himchal Pradesh then.

‘My friend David Davidar of Penguin Books told me to do something useful instead of lolling in the sun. I wrote a short story and he included it in the ‘Indian Collection of Ghost Stories’, which Ruskin Bond was editing,’ said Etteth.

In 1996, Etteth wrote his first volume of short horror stories, ‘The Scream of the Dragonflies’, which he says was ‘full of vampires’. He followed it up with a full-length thriller, ‘The Village of Widows’, a prequel to his new novel.

The author says World Wars I and II have had a deep influence on him.

‘It’s because of their scale of evil. What Japan did to China and Germany to Europe did during the wars cannot be matched with anything but the atrocities in the days of Timur and Babur. Most of the perpetrators of war world crimes were not skilled executioners. They were either doctors, lawyers, dentists or professionals,’ Etteth said.

It meant that the masterminds could not create a ‘massive evil machinery’, the writer inferred. ‘Which proves given an opportunity, 90 percent people are capable of creating total evil.’

‘My grandpa fought in the World War II in Mesopotamia and I liked reading about the war to while away my time,’ Etteth said.

While browsing through the Internet to learn more about the wars, Etteth stumbled upon a diary of an Indian airman of the Royal Indian Air Force, who fought in the Burma theatre during World War II.

‘I also chanced upon an Indian regiment that fought for Mussolini’s army, the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan, and another that swore allegiance to Hitler, Freies Indian Legionnaires,’ he said.

Mussolini wanted to send the legion to go to Africa, but the Indian soldiers wanted to fight the British.

‘It sparked a revolt and the deserters apparently became mercenaries and a handful joined Bose’s Indian National Army,’ the author said.

The slices of history set the writer thinking.

‘Netaji had made a lot of money. After his plot in India failed, he probably wanted to fly out with all the money and gold he had collected. But his INA mates wanted the gold back and shot down his plane.’

And that is how Etteth hit upon the idea for his latest novel.

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White witch from ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ named ‘Scariest Literary Character’

January 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

London, Jan 17 (ANI): The terrifying white witch from ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ has been voted the scariest ever-fictional baddy in a new poll.

It topped the poll by Penguin books in which 600 grown-up readers were asked to identify most frightening literary characters from children’s books.

The list of top 10 scary characters in kids-literature was compiled to celebrate the publication of Mr Toppit, a novel based on children’s writer Arthur Hayman.

And as it turns out the white witch from the 1950 CS Lewis classic, menacingly played on the big screen by Tilda Swinton, was named the scariest of them all.
At the second place was Captain Hook from ‘Peter Pan’, who is believed to be was far more scarier in the original 1904 book than the comical versions in the Disney cartoon, other movies and pantos.

The Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl’s 1983 book ‘The Witches’ stood at the third place, reports The Telegraph.

Rounding off at fourth and fifth place were two evil mothers- Snow White’s wicked stepmother from the Brothers Grimm story which dates back to 1810 and Cruella de Vil from the 1956 book ‘The Hundred and One Dalmatians’ respectively.

Top 10 scary characters:

1. White Witch (The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis – 1950)

2. Captain Hook (Peter Pan by J M Barrie – 1904)

3. The Grand High Witch (The Witches by Roald Dahl – 1983)

4. Wicked Stepmother (Snow White by Brothers Grimm – 1810)

5. Cruella de Vil (The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith – 1956)

6. Voldemort (Harry Potter books by J K Rowling – 1997)

7. The Child Catcher (Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming though in the1968 film not book)

8. Miss Trunchbull (Matilda by Roald Dahl – 1988)

9. The Wolf (Red Riding Hood by Brothers Grimm – 1810)

10. Long John Silver (Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – 1883)ANI)

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