Global Reader is an ambitious new global digital service that will deliver content from a variety of publishers directly to a market of international consumers through their mobile phones. Macmillan Publishing Services will launch it on February 15, offering access to books, newspapers, magazines, music and video.
In a phone interview, Bob Kasher, director of sales at MPS, said the Global Reader will launch with about 200 books initially and will offer several thousand titles in about a month. Kasher expects to have tens of thousands of books (in multiple languages) from a wide variety of publishers available by BookExpo in June. “We want to offer any content that's out there,” said Kasher, who added that while the service will offer full-text books, mobile consumers will likely want “bite-sized chunks of content,” from chapters and short stories to periodicals and original works developed for phones.
MPS, a subsidiary of Macmillan Group (formerly Holtzbrinck), has teamed with Bango, a mobile services platform developer and specialist in international billing, payment and data tracking, and Fli Digital, which builds front- and backend platforms for cellphone networks.
Consumers with Internet-enabled cellphones can log on to the Global Reader mobile site (a cellphone network site, not the Web), browse content, make purchases and assemble a personal library that is maintained on the site. All content must be accessed online through the cellphone carrier's network, although Kasher said downloadable, DRM-protected content will be offered in the future. Once a consumer connects, the site assigns the visitor's phone a “digital fingerprint”—without name or personal information—that is used to track payment and the content the user buys. This data is delivered to the publishers and used to offer consumers other materials.
Individual publishers decide on pricing. Kasher “hopes for paperback prices” for full-text books, and he expects to sell chapters and smaller chunks of content for $1, “like iTunes.” Publishers receive 40%—45% of the list price; 30%—35% goes to the phone carrier and the rest to MPS. “We will collect the revenues and remit to the publishers on a quarterly basis,” said Kasher. “We're testing a variety of pricing models, including advertising,” said Kasher. “We've been working on this about a year. We didn't want to go to market too quickly, but the time is right to monetize mobile phone content.”
