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Interact brings p.o.d. to high street

23.11.07 Tom Tivnan

Print on demand is coming to the high street in the shape of a title that will let football fans compile a yearbook of their favourite team.

Independent football specialist Interact Publishing's My Football Year (h/b, £19.99) lets readers create their own 64-page full-colour title about their football team's season. Customers buy an instruction book instore--with Waterstone's and W H Smith already stocking the title--which also contains a password to Interact's website, www.myfootballyear.com. Fans can then log on, select their team and adjust the Interact-provided content. At the end of the season in May, a copy will be printed with the fan's name and choice of title on the front cover.

There are 25 clubs to choose from: all 20 English Premier League teams, plus Celtic, Rangers and Dutch giants Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. Interact's sport journalists have been creating content for each team since the season began in August.

The book will have six pages for each month. Readers can select through the website new images and change picture sizes, as well as re-write match reports, player ratings, captions and headlines. Any part of the book can be adjusted until the reader opts to print.

Interact is aiming to sell 15,000 to 20,000 copies this season. Director Terry Pratt said: "We initially wanted a softly, softly approach in the first year. Printing 15,000 unique copies at once is a challenge. But p.o.d. technology has increased so dramatically that we're not expecting any problems."

Next year, Interact hopes to expand the number of clubs available and also create a more image- based My Football Annual aimed at younger children. Pratt also aims to roll the project out to other areas. He said: "Other sports such as rugby and Formula 1 could be the next steps. But I can see this branching out to the arts as well; My Film Year seems like an obvious title to me."

Interact, which is represented by Derek Searle Associates with distribution through Littlehampton Book Services, was started in 2005 by former journalist Pratt. It has published the Match of the Day Football Yearbook and Football Annual. In September, it released Project World XI (h/b, £17.99), a print/web hybrid book and game that asks children to search for the world's 50 best footballers.

tom tivnan Print on demand POD interact

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