Publishers of Interactive Books

By Marie D'Amico, 

Factoids: Bantam publishes fiction and nonfiction such as the seminal digital books, The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll and Hackers by Steven Levy and the rainmaking novels of John Grisham. Bantam is taking a cautious approach towards the CD-ROM medium and are looking for significant improvements or features over the printed page before they convert their print content to digital.

HarperCollins Interactive
HarperCollins, Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, New York 10022
Telephone: (212) 207-7000 / (800) 424-6234
Facsimile: (212) 207-7433
Website

Factoids: HarperCollins is the second largest book publishing company in the United States, the largest English-language publisher in the world, and allegedly holder of the world's largest "backlist." HarperCollins announced the formation of a CD-ROM subsidiary, HarperCollins Interactive, in March '94, to translate their incredible backlist onto CD-ROMs. They published the three million unit self-help book by John Gray for man-woman communication, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus , and the new Isabel Allende novel, Paula , both currently on most best-seller hardcover nonfiction lists. In early '96, Harper announced they would no longer be in the interactive book business.

Factoids: Houghton is one of the oldest independent publishing houses in the U.S. and is widely known for its strengths in educational publishing, children's books, educational software and testing, and new authors of poetry and fiction. Houghton spun off its former software division in March '94 as a publicly traded company, now known as InfoSoft International, Inc. Houghton just published the '90s soul-of-the-new-machine book, Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure , by Jerry Kaplan, ex-CEO of GO Corporation.

Living Books
160 Pacific Avenue Mall, Suite 201
San Francisco, California 94111
Telephone: (415) 352-5200
Facsimile: (415) 352-5213
Website

Factoids: Living Books is a joint venture of Broderbund, Inc. and Random House, Inc. which has been officially split off from Broderbund and shall shortly be setting up quarters at the address listed above.

Penguin
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Telephone: (212) 366-2000
Facsimile: (212) 366-2666
Website

Factoids: Penguin, soon to celebrate its 60th anniversary, is owned by the huge British conglomerate Pearson PLC. Penguin is primarily a paperback publisher but their parent company also owns other famous book imprints such as Playskool Children's books, Meridian, Signet, and Viking, in addition to the software company, Mindscape, who recently signed the Zeitgeist cartoonist Garry Trudeau to make titles based upon his strip, Doonesbury . One of Penguin's most famous authors is the scary yet ubiquitous Stephen King, whose royalties rival Bill Gates, and they published Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, which just won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Their mandate is to have the same success in the electronic book market as they have had in the literary mass market.

Random House New Media
Random House, Inc.
201 East 50th Street
New York, New York 10022
Telephone: (212) 751-2600
Facsimile: (212) 572-8700
Website

Factoids: Random House went on a buying spree in the '80s and now owns many imprints such as The Ballantine Publishing Group, The House of Collectibles (books on a wide range of antiques and collectibles), Del Rey Books (science fiction and fantasy books, e.g. , The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks and the Star Wars series), Fodor's Travel Publications, and the Knopf Publishing Group, notable publishers of hardcover fiction and nonfiction, e.g. , Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte. Random House published In the Kitchen with Rosie , the Oprah Winfrey cookbook by Rosie Daley, Dave Barry's Guide to Guys by Dave Barry, Spontaneous Healing by Andrew Weil, The Death of Common Sense by Philip Howard, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt, all currently on most best-seller hardcover nonfiction lists.

Simon & Schuster Interactive
Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
Telephone: (212) 698-7000 / 800-983-5333
Facsimile: (212) 698-7007
Website

Factoids: Simon & Schuster is the largest publisher in the U.S. They own, among other entities, Prentice-Hall, a major publisher of school materials, Macmillan Books, the world's largest computer book publisher, and Pocket Books, a leading paperback publisher. They want to be the "major technology-driven content provider in the worldwide economy" and with their parent Viacom owning MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, and VH1, among other ventures, they are well-poised to fulfill this desire. They formed Macmillan Digital USA in November '94 to distribute "reference and book content" in electronic format. They hope to publish 10 titles by the end of '95.

Time Warner Electronic Publishing
Time Inc.
Time and Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York, New York 10020
Telephone: (212) 522-1212
Facsimile: (212) 522-7989
Website

Factoids: As with Simon & Schuster, Time Warner Electronic Publishing (or "twep" as they refer to it) can take advantage of the content owned by Time Inc., Warner Books, Inc. and Little, Brown & Company. Warner Books publishes Robert James Waller's best-sellers, including The Bridges of Madison County , No. 3 on most hardcover fiction lists, and his new novel, Border Music . In addition, Warner publishes The Hot Zone by Robert Preston and The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield, both residing firmly on most top 10 best-selling lists of hardcover nonfiction and fiction, respectively, while Times Books publishes In Retrospect, the new Vietnam War-apology by Robert McNamara.

Factoids: Founded in '84, Voyager has been developing interactive books and music CD-ROMs for over 10 years. Their music CD-ROMs include classical music by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, and Stravinsky, and unclassifiable music by the San Francisco-based band The Residents. They recently published a CD-ROM based upon the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, The Complete Maus , by Art Spiegelman, a memoir of his father's experiences during the Holocaust. Their products tend toward the beautiful and thoughtful.

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