Disney Books, which sells 250 million children’s books each year, is making over 500 children’s titles available online by subscription, with more to be added twice a month. The site is targeted at children 3-12 and their parents, but will also include some titles for teens. The annual fee of $79.95 gives up to three kids and their parents access to the site, which will also have educational features, including the ability to click on a word to hear it read. Books for younger readers will feature a full voice track and music, with the words highlighted as they’re read aloud.
Marketing for the Disney subscription site will include three million postcards distributed at Disney movies, and a social media and advertising campaign designed to reach 14 million mothers, according to the New York Times.
This major initiative by Disney is only one aspect of the rapid movement of books online, a trend that is confirmed by a global survey of book publishers conducted by Frankfurt Book Fair, the German magazine Buchreport, and Publishers Weekly. The 840 responding publishers lacked uniformity in how books are going to move onto the Web, or how fast, but around 50% believe that over half of their revenues will be digital by 2018. Closer to the present, 58% of responding publishers believe that 2011 digital sales will be over 10% of total revenue.
Subscriptions, a la Disney, were favored by 25% of respondents, with more European publishers favoring that model. Micropayments is favored by 23% of respondents, mostly in the
