Book and Beyond Enhanced E-books

Random House Initiative Offers Readers Additional Digital Content

Apr 24, 2009

Book and Beyond offers readers a range of additional features. While this is common with DVDs, it is a new concept in e-book delivery and provides something new.

Book and Beyond, from Random House, is an initiative that makes available a range of enhanced e-books. Unlike standard e-books which are electronic replicas of the paper editions, the Book and Beyond enhanced e-books have added features. These features include video, additional content, audio and games. The enhanced e-books can include a range of features depending on the book. The Book and Beyond range includes novels by Lee Child, Markus Zusak and James Patterson.

How Are Book and Beyond E-books Read?

Random House have recognized that there are large number of people who access their e-books, digital magazines and other electronic publications and on their computers rather than an e-book reading device. People accessing digital content via the computer can take advantage of the additional processing power is a computer has in order to view contents that would be impossible on smaller devices. The additional features included on Book and Beyond e-books are designed to be accessed via a computer. Unlike standard e-books that can be read on mobile e-book reading devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader or mobile phones and PDAs, Book and Beyond enhanced e-books contain larger files which must be accessed on a computer. The extra content on any Book and Beyond e-book can increase the size of the file by 300 percent.

The Random House Book and Beyond enhanced e-books are designed to be accessed via Adobe Digital Editions. The Adobe Digital Editions software is free and can be downloaded from the Adobe website. Adobe Digital Editions has been designed to help readers manage their digital publications and includes a number of useful features. These include bookmarking, word search and a library view. Adobe Digital Editions is compatible with both PCs and Apple Mac computers.

The Benefits of Enhanced E-Books

Enhanced e-books from Book and Beyond have a lot in common with modern DVDs. As it is expected that a DVD will contain special features and added value content, enhanced e-books are going some way to meet the readers perception that e-books should offer more than a standard printed edition. While Book and Beyond e-books are more expensive than standard e-books, they are still relatively competitive when compared with paper edition. It will be up to individual users to determine whether the added features are worth an additional cost.