About Digital Newsbooks
RJI produces Digital Newsbooks for members of the RJI Digital Publishing Alliance, including The Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, Center for Public Integrity and Nieman Reports. They can be purchased online at www.eReaderOutfitters.com.
Download sample (377 KB PDF).
The principal purpose of the Digital Newsbook Publishing Project is to produce and test market a new revenue-generating digital content product for publishers that RJI calls “Digital Newsbooks.”
Digital Newsbooks are substantive, visually rich eBooks on timely, newsworthy topics. Their content consists primarily of journalistic investigative and explanatory reports including photos and graphics that were originally published in newspapers or magazines.
Digital Newsbooks produced at RJI require no special software for viewing other than a simple PDF viewer. They are especially designed for downloading quickly and reading comfortably on e-readers and most other mobile display devices including tablet PCs and notebook computers.
The Digital Newsbook Publishing Project has three components:
- Digital Newsbook Production Services: To expedite production and assure high quality, RJI will initially produce Digital Newsbooks in a timely, professional manner for DPA members at its facilities in Columbia, Missouri. The production team will produce up to six Digital Newsbooks for DPA members at RJI through December 31, 2009, at no cost beyond the publishers’ annual DPA membership dues.
- Digital Newsbook Marketing and Sales: RJI will work with DPA members and online companies to manage pilot stores on which Digital Newsbooks can be marketed and sold.
- Digital Newsbook Research: RJI will aggregate and analyze data gathered from the pilot online stores on which Digital Newsbooks are marketed and sold as well as from focus groups and other sources.
The RJI officially launched two pilot online stores at the DPA meeting on May 5. Our two partners are:
- eReader Outfitters, a privately held company based in Pleasanton, California, is an online store dedicated to selling eBooks, e-readers and accessories. The URL for the Web site is www.ereaderoutfitters.com/RJI+Newsbooks.110/.
- MBS Direct, a division of MBS Textbook Exchange based in Columbia, Missouri, provides online purchasing of textbooks and course materials for students and faculty in K-12 and higher education. The URL for the Web site is www.mbsdirect.net/newsbooks.
The participating DPA members, hosting services and RJI will share revenue from the sales of Digital Newsbooks on the pilot Web sites. Publishers will incur no additional costs to have their Digital Newsbooks placed in the pilot online stores.
For more information about the Digital Publishing Alliance, Digital Newsbook Publishing Project and the Reynolds Journalism Institute, please contact Roger Fidler at fidlerr@rjionline.org or (573) 808-2137.
Roger Fidler, RJI program director for digital publishing, is the Digital Newsbook Publishing Project’s leader and principal developer. Fidler is internationally recognized as a digital publishing pioneer and visionary. He conceived and first wrote about the idea of creating interactive newspaper editions that could be read on mobile reading devices in 1981, while he was design director for Knight-Ridder’s experimental online service called Viewtron.