A Publishing House with a difference

Cool Publications are focused on taking the eBook revolution into the next level. Their enhanced, interactive, unlocked books are challenging every notion of Digital Rights Management.

(PRWEB) March 29, 2004 --The question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) has been at the centre of discussions regarding the release of digital content from about the moment digital content became available. Afraid that the ease with which digital files can be copied and disseminated would lead to a drop in revenue publishing houses have been behind a number of increasingly elaborate measures to ensure that those who digitally buy their books will not be tempted to sin against them.

The whole thing is ridiculous and tinged with paranoia," says Dennis Couniacis, former media analyst and Managing Director of Cool Publications (www.coolpublications.com) the entire basis of Digital Rights Management is based on the fundamentally flawed assumption that everyone who is emailed one of the books you sell from a friend would have gone out and bought a copy themselves. We know for a fact that this doesnt happen with paper books and its not likely to happen with digital books either."

This is why Cool Publications, which has been operating since May last year, does not make its downloads device-dependent. We take the view that its your book," says Dennis, you bought it so you have every right to read it on your desktop, or your laptop or transfer it to your PDA without having to make additional purchases. You can even share it with your friends or family as you would with a normal paper book. People are essentially honest. They understand the work involved in bringing books to the market and do not consciously set out to defraud publishers from revenue. We want our books to be read and have no wish to engineer the normal behaviour of our readers to suit our notion of how digital books should be shared."

The publisher, which has plans to bring 50 more original publications to the market by the end of the year," also allows those who purchase books from its site to create a password-protected profile. Your books are your world," says senior editor Christine Walker, who was the main advocate of the set-up. In todays mobile lifestyle you may well find yourself half way round the world without having remembered to also load your copy of your ebook to your new laptop or PDA. With our system you can log online from anywhere and securely download the books youve purchased, again. We believe in your being able to take your world with you."

On top of their original content the publishing house also bring guest publications which are featured in their free electronic, full-colour, interactive, magazine, A & O. The idea behind it was to create a vehicle where the content gave you much more than just what we do," explains Dennis, we have a team of four staff writers and an editor producing it every two months and they work hard to source content that is as widely applicable to the digital lifestyles of our readers as possible. Digital publishing is here to stay and were committed to providing as much value for money for our readers as we possibly can."        

Notes for Editors:
Cool Publications first dipped an experimental toe in the digital publishing water back in 1999 when eBooks were at their nascent. With encouraging results they pulled our later that same year when a proliferation in the market led them to question the value-for-money concept in buying a digital copy of a paper book. With three years spent in development the innovative publishers model has them producing eBooks which are fully interactive, seamlessly link with websites through the internet and are packed with a host of extra features designed to enhance the reading experience.

For more information contact Tony Scott at tony.s@coolpublications.com or Dennis Couniacis at dennis.c@coolpublications.com. Tel: 0161-439 7525. Fax: 0161-440 7569.