Disney

Based on the series “The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod” by New York Times best-selling YA author Heather Brewer, High School Bites allows users to enter into the blood-sucking world of Vladimir Tod, Brewer’s hero whose human mother and vampire father perished in a fire. Special features of High School Bites include two different ways to play—either swiping the screen or tilting the device—and three different levels of difficulty, which users can increase as they progress.

Editors of four of the most interesting and innovative digital publishers sat down with L.A. Times book critic David L. Ulin Saturday to discuss how they do what they do, and why.

The players, in alphabetical order:

The Atavist. Launched in January 2011, The Atavist was one of the first iPad-native apps to tell robust nonfiction stories that fully exploited the possibilities of the tablet, such as audio, video, an interactive time line and animations.

Nicholas Callaway is on a mission to build the publishing company of the future.

Callaway, 58, is the founder and chief content officer of Callaway Digital Arts, a New York and San Francisco-based app development and publishing company. Founded in late 2010 with $6 million of series A funding from tech start-up venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Callaway Digital Arts has grown from about ten employees at the end of 2010 to nearly 50 today.

Marvel Entertainment is to actively support the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).The US House Of Representatives has released a list of organisations in favour of the anti-piracy bill, which includes the publisher and its parent company Disney.No other comic book firms appeared on the document, though DC Entertainment's parent company Time Warner did feature. Book publishers such as Hachette, Macmillan, Harper Collins, Penguin and Random House are also in favour of the controversial legislation.SOPA aims to allow service providers to tackle websites deemed to be in violation of copyright infringement. Opponents of the bill warn that it could be

Bertelsmann AG has acquired cutting-edge digital media agency Smashing Ideas, Inc. for its Random House, Inc. division, the world’s largest English-language trade book publisher. ... Smashing Ideas is renowned for offering strategic marketing solutions and creating immersive, interactive content experiences, from games to branded sites to story-based applications, across multiple digital distribution channels, including online, smartphones, tablet devices, and iTV.

Disney Publishing Worldwide will launch The Kane Chronicles, Book Two: The Throne of Fire with a 1.5 million-copy first printing on Tuesday, May 3, 2011.

(Press Release) LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Disney Publishing has reached an important milestone, with 1 million downloads for its Disney Book Apps globally on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

On the morning of January 27th—an aeon ago, in tech time—Steve Jobs was to appear at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in downtown San Francisco, to unveil Apple’s new device, the iPad. Although speculation about the device had been intense, few in the audience knew yet what it was called or exactly what it would do, and there was a feeling of expectation in the room worthy of the line outside the grotto at Lourdes. Hundreds of journalists and invited guests, including Al Gore, Yo-Yo Ma, and Robert Iger, the C.E.O. of Disney, milled around the theatre, waiting for Jobs to appear. The sound system had been playing a medley of Bob Dylan songs; it went quiet as the lights came up onstage and Jobs walked out, to the crowd’s applause.

From multimillion-dollar acquisitions to multimillion-dollar best-sellers, powerful women stand at every pivotal, decision-making point in the book publishing process. Book Business’ first annual “50 Top Women in Book Publishing” feature recognizes and honors some of these industry leaders who affect and transform how publishing companies do business, and what—and how—consumers read.

When the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) hosted its annual Publishing University conference in Chicago in early November, publishers, printers and vendors who attended the “Offshoring” session were provided with tips, advice and a few fair warnings about partnering with offshore manufacturers. Jennifer Butenschoen, director of production at Harvest House Publishers, which publishes Bibles, self-help titles and gift books, presented a 90-minute crash course on the topic, during which she offered tips that Book Business readers should find useful in evaluating their own offshore manufacturing strategy. More than 100 million Harvest House books have been sold worldwide since the company’s conception in 1974. Now