Time Warner Enters Electronic Publishing Arena

Posted on May 24, 2000

Time Warner Trade Publishing has announced that it will launch iPublish.com at Time Warner Books in the first quarter of next year. iPublish.com will explore new avenues for the production, distribution, and sales of of fiction and non-fiction material created specifically for the Internet.

"We believe that an established publishing house can make a bold leap and succeed in the wide-open space of the Internet," said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, Chairman/CEO of Time Warner Trade Publishing, who made the announcement. "While our new venture will have its own staff and a specially tailored approach, we hope to bring our incredible roster of current authors, our rich backlist, and our own publishing acumen to this exciting new company. Plus, our impending new relationship as part of AOL-Time Warner can only add to our desire to redefine what it means to 'publish' a book."

iPublish.com will be headed by Gregory Voynow, currently the vice president and director of online marketing & development for Time Warner Trade Publishing. Voynow will assume the title of Senior Vice President and General Manager of iPublish.com. Voynow is overseeing a team of 15 editorial, marketing, and technical staff who have worked on the iPublish.com at Time Warner Books venture since last fall.

"We want to target our readers and publish for them more effectively, and the evolving digital marketplace will allow us to do this. Ebooks will broaden the audience of readers by publishing for the reality of the way people live today, and the way they will read tomorrow," Voynow said.

In addition to Voynow, Claire Zion, most recently an executive editor at Warner Books, will serve as Editorial Director at iPublish.com at Time Warner Books. Zion will supervise the building of a list of original material for electronic publication; her editorial staff will also work with Time Warner Trade Publishing editors to coordinate the development of electronic content from their authors. In addition, Zion will oversee the content merchandising, and editorial and marketing messages, on the iPublish.com website.

According to Maureen Mahon Egen, President, Time Warner Trade Publishing, the house will convert a vast range of existing content to the digital format in the months leading up to iPublish.com's launch -- and offer original ebooks by well-known authors for distribution through its network of partners. Egen said that bestselling authors David Baldacci, Walter Mosley, and Robert Kiyosaki have already signed on to write new content exclusively for iPublish.com.

iPublish.com will consist of three channels. The first channel, iRead, will showcase published works and serve as a launchpad for distribution to online outlets. The second area, iWrite will be where reader-members (writers) will be able to submit new works. Time Warner editors and reader-members will review submissions and choose new works to be published in both the digital and print formats. The third area, iLearn, will be a forum for Time Warner's authors and editors to share their expertise with the site's users.



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