• In the second of our series of interviews with digital innovators from the UK conducted on the iPhone, we spoke to Peter Collingridge of Enhanced Editions, an iPhone and mobile device publisher of enhanced ebooks in the UK.
• Here, Collingridge discusses his career, his outlook for Enhanced Editions, and his vision for the future of the ebook.
Interview by Ramy Habeeb
LONDON: In the second of our series of interviews with digital innovators from the UK, we spoke to Peter Collingridge of Enhanced Editions, an iPhone and mobile device publisher of enhanced ebooks in the UK. Collingridge has worked in publishing and technology for 12 years and is the co-founder of Enhanced Editions; after working at Canongate Books for 4 years, he produced over 25 publishing websites and films before setting up Apt in 2005. Apt has produced a number of acclaimed websites, from Bookseer.com to 25thEstate.com to Granta.com.
Enhanced Editions was born out of a blog post just days after the announcement of Apple’s App store in 2008; their motto, “ebooks the way nature intended,” suggests a “first-mover” mentality and, to wit, the company is considered to be at the vanguard of developing technically sophisticated book apps. The company’s first title, Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro quickly became a benchmark for ebook publishing. It featured text synchronized with the unabridged audiobook as read by the author, and was augmented with an original soundtrack by Cave and collaborator Warren Ellis. It was further supplemented with 11 videos of Cave reading from the novel. The whole production prompted WIRED magazine to call it “pure punk poetry.”
In our interview, conducted in his garden in London, Collingridge discusses his career, his outlook for Enhanced Editions, and his vision for the future of the ebook.
The iPhone Interviews: Peter Collingridge from Publishing Perspectives on Vimeo.
DISCUSS: Do enhanced ebooks demand premium pricing?