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Octopus was forced to use Apple's proprietary iBooks Author technology for the first digital version of The World Atlas of Wine because it was the only available option that could render the Atlas' generous maps.
Octopus publisher Denise Bates said it was against Octopus policy to use a proprietary format, but other technologies could not render the 400-page book—by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson, and now in its seventh edition— in the way that was needed.
"Any major publishing project of this kind has to have a digital element, and we could see what we could deliver that would add to the experience," she said. "We tried hard to see how we could do it in a non-proprietary format we could sell to all e-tailers, and we worked
with Amazon to see if it would work as something on Kindle Fire. But the scale of the mapping is such that if you deliver it on the Kindle, even with a zoom facility, you only ever see a section of the map."
The iBook edition, priced at £19.99 against a print price of £40, includes an author video, panoramic and interactive maps, pop-up features, note-taking and scrollable thumbnail page-spreads at the bottom of the screen to aid navigation through the text.
Octopus digital projects manager Kjell Eldor said: "We're very pleased with it. For us this book is so huge - not just in terms of status - but also scale. The maps are two or three times larger than the screen of any device out there. IBooks Author allows us to place them in panoramic boxes so you can explore every contour, which does add additional value; and the backlit screen really brings the photographs to life."
The scrolling text feature included in the latest iBooks Author update also "gave us so much space to play with", Kjell added.
The iBook includes a "How to Use this Book" introduction, while Octopus has also produced videos of Johnson and Robinson demonstrating how it works. Bates said Octopus "certainly wanted to bring with us" longstanding print Atlas readers who might be newer to the digital technology.
"We don't have hard and fast data [on Atlas readers], not least because the Atlas is bought as a gift," she said. "But it's not unreasonable to assume we have a longstanding fan base who own two or three of the old editions. We felt they could be tempted to try this, and felt we wanted to make that bridge as soon as possible. It will be interesting to see if we bring in a new audience who didn't know the print version."
With the support of the authors - "Jancis and Hugh have been working their socks off in the UK and US and talked about it at every opportunity," Bates said - early sales for the iBook, released last month, are described as "very strong and in excess of our expectations".
Meanwhile publishing partners in digitally well-developed markets overseas, such as Hallwag in Germany, have been "very interested and excited". Octopus now has to work out how to deliver the digital edition in all the different languages, "a parallel to co-edition
publishing," as Bates puts it.
Bates said that primarily the iBook has been a brand investment and also an experiment, to see how a property such as the Atlas, with a big following and sales potential, would work in digital form. "It's primarily for these reasons, rather than expecting to make a
significant profit. However we would expect to run into profit at some point," Bates said.