NBC publishers want to prove that a TV company can make better e-books

NBC publishers want to prove that a TV company can make better e-books

With Apple announcing ibooks's occupation of most of the electronic publishing industry two weeks ago, you may have missed a message posted one weeks ago in the world of digital books: NBC News, under the COMCAST of the Comcast media empire NBC Universal, to start a new business The NBC Press publishes electronic and paper-based books in the name of NBC. If it's not wrong, the NBC publishing group may try to publish e-books first.

Michael Fabiano, general manager of NBC Publishing Group

Michael Fabiano, the general manager of NBC Publishing Group, was delighted to be in the spotlight with Apple. "We like it because we're all attracted to what we're doing about E-book multimedia," Fabiano told Wired. "This is to bring a variety of media into these emerging things." ”

As NBC publishers develop e-books for Apple, Amazon, Barnes Study and science blog, Fabino says NBC can quickly account for 80-15% 's electronic reading market. If combined with mobile apps and Cross-platform mobile devices developed for these companies, these products can easily occupy most of the market.

In the same way, NBC Press initially developed, compiled, edited and produced books. To help publishers, the Fabino and NBC News agency hired the creative director of Pitt Kstanso and digital development, Brian, who is a very experienced executive in both print publishing and digital publishing. They joined a team of video producers and engineers from the NBC television division.

Fabino that this team has three unique characteristics, stronger than other production agencies, they are committed to the book and other media, especially video together.

1. Resources. On NBC, Fabino said, "on the shelves of our databases, we have a unique source of material that has never been seen before"-events, interviews, clips, and everything that was recorded by the camera when it was produced for NBC News, sports or entertainment, whether or not it was aired.

The first few projects of NBC Press will focus on the rational use of these documents. "We can make a story that is well known to the public and use resources that the public has never seen before," Fabino said. For example, "Kennedy: 50 Days", produced jointly by Vook and Bohr Book Group, uses the original articles and videos of the NBC database. If you make an ongoing story, such as the 2012 election, the material, as Fabino says, "reverse-engineer a material into a historical material, but still coincide with what is happening today."

2. Talent. History and news materials are plentiful, although only one can be used by NBC Publishing, and the new department can take advantage of all the files and raw materials of NBC Universal. Universal Studios, NBC Entertainment, Bravo channel, science fiction channel, or the United States of America can be a force for the material, and each other, book projects can be developed into a project with other projects.

In fact, in Sunday, Mike Reynolds, a multichannel News magazine, described how NBC Universal Maik Renoz to publicize the Super Bowl's broadcast on NBC. NBC plans to include the Super Bowl theme of the NBC Sports Network and to bring in talent from Jimifaren late-night show (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) and Indianapolis weather Forecast (Weather Channel to Indianapolis). Digital books are the future trend of this multi-channel, multi-platform.

3. Video production resources. NBC knows how to make videos. They have a lot of experience in production and production and specialized manufacturing facilities. "For us, this is a potential cost," Fabino said. "Traditional publishers have to create or buy this technology," he said. "or outsource them to others, either way, it will be difficult for them to continue to expand."

4. Copyright Management. Multimedia books bring new experiences to readers, but they bring new challenges to publishers, such as clarifying copyright issues like video and audio clips. Forget about uploading to YouTube-when some adult readers start embedding hundreds of videos on ibooks, it's a headache to think of copyright-to sell them in an Apple store.

NBC has a lot of experience in the safety and management of copyrights, whether you get permission from their own databases or from people who have copyright. And, Fabino says, "Our video researcher is also a video editor--it's unique in the entertainment world--and we have a lot of experience in the management of copyrights, all by the same person." Again, traditional publishers like to hire or outsource that ability, but we can learn and create them flexibly.

Later in the interview, Fabino reiterated that. "You can't make the world of IP smaller," he said. As various media participate in the publishing industry "we will see the choppy appearance of copyright law issues". Again, imagine YouTube's copyright accompanying the Amazon plagiarism scandal.

From yesterday to today, the project produced by NBC's early and running media (Running Press)

NBC Press now plans to release its first ebook in February, with a total of more than 30 copies a year. This includes multimedia books and E-books--in which case it is possible to collaborate with other publishers in publishing the printed version. Gradually, Fabino wants to launch a business outside NBC and engage authors of original works outside NBC, who have the ability to create multimedia works. This is our goal.

After this goal, Fabino has a big vision:

The collection of these different mediums to the same product facilitates those who are genuinely interested in software innovation in the publishing industry. We need people who understand technology and who have creative elements in the author and writing.

Also keep in mind that NBC is neither the only one with the ability to use video assets for multimedia publishing, nor is it the only television network with a publishing company. News Corp, owned by Fox and Collins (HarperCollins), Disney, with ABC, is the world's largest book publisher of children, and in Disney, John Skip, the new head of ESPN, the sports television network, joined ESPN in 1997, The ESPN magazine was the vice-president of Disney's publishing company.

So if NBC's experience is successful – or unsuccessful – we can all see companies with a TV network background running Multimedia Publishing.

This area is still exploring how to define. Or it could be said to be just a publisher with a strong multimedia group background, and NBC Press has a great opportunity to define this area.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)