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Richard Branson’s Virgin Digital Book Publishing company on Tuesday launched “Project,” a digital lifestyle magazine, exclusively for distribution on the Apple iPad.

The magazine, which will reportedly feature multimedia content, will be priced at US$2.99 an issue.

This is the second digital magazine created exclusively for the iPad announced by a major company; the first was “The Daily,” from News Corp. (Nasdaq: NWS), which is scheduled to be launched next year.

Will Virgin’s endorsement of the iPad as a publishing platform undermine publishers’ consortium Next Issue Media, which is trying to squeeze Apple by launching a digital newsstand on the Android platform early next year?

The Book Publishing Project Has Landed

“Project” was created jointly by Virgin Group and UK multimedia book publisher Seven Squared. It’s a monthly magazine that will change as often as minute-by-minute to give readers up-to-date news.

The publication is based around design, entertainment, technology and entrepreneurs. It will have its own staff, and it will also encourage contributions from the public.

“Project” is edited by Anthony Noguera, formerly editorial director of men’s lifestyle magazines at H. Bauer, the largest privately owned publisher in Europe. The publication’s art director is Che Storey, formerly of Arena and Men’s Health magazines.

The cover story for the first issue focuses on Jeff Bridges. Other subjects include Yamauchi Kazanori, the developer behind the “Gran Turismo” game series.

“Project” claims to have landed top-flight advertisers, including Lexus, American Express (NYSE: AXP), Panasonic, Ford UK and Ford Canada.

Readers Heart Digital

Consumers apparently love their tablets — an online survey of more than 1,800 consumers conducted by Harrison Group and Zinio in September found that 13 percent of consumers are interested in buying a tablet-based device within the next 12 months.

The survey also found that 55 percent of tablet and e-reader owners who read digital content are consuming more digital content than they expected, and that 33 percent are spending more on buying digital content.

That led the Harrison Group to forecast sales of more than 20 million tablets and e-readers next year.

“This is a continuation of the trend in that you’ve got a whole host of devices that are receptacles for Internet-based content,” Frank Dickson, a vice president of research at In-Stat, told MacNewsWorld. “You’re seeing reconfiguring of content, which is already in digital form for another medium, whether it’s the iPad, the Nook, the Kindle or the smartphone,” he added.

“Before the iPad, book publishers tended to think they had to choose whether consumers wanted to read content in print or in digital format,” Jeanniey Mullen, a spokesperson for Zinio, told MacNewsWorld. “Now they’re finding people may love print, but they want digital access as well so they can take their digital device with them and read on the go.”

The Agony and the Ecstasy of the iPad

The iPad has forced the publishing industry to take digital media seriously, Mullen said.

“When the iPad came out in April, it was the first time that the publishing industry began committing design and strategic resources to building up digital readership,” Mullen explained.

Strong consumer demand has made the iPad the spea

The U.S. Copyright Office offers two options for protecting your book legally, Registration and Pre-Registration, that will be dealt with and explained separately in this post. The first, “registration”, is the most common and available for both published and unpublished works – for our book publishing purposes, any original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies and songs.

You can either get an attorney to file copyright for you, or Schiel & Denver Book Publishers offer an affordable Copyright Registration Service to the U.S. Copyright Office which takes care of everything and you get a official certificate of U.S. copyright registration at the end of the process.

However, the second service offered by the U.S. Copyright Office, that causes some confusion among new authors, is the “Pre-registration” service, which has a very specific purpose to protect works that the author believes are at high risk of being stolen, while still being in production.

• For the vast majority of works, preregistration is not useful.
• Preregistration is not a substitute for registration. If you do preregister your work, you are required to register it when it is published.

You may benefit by preregistering your work if:

• you think it’s likely someone may infringe your work before it is released; and,
• you have started your work but have not finished it.

You can preregister your work only if:

• your work is unpublished; and,
• creation of your work has begun; and,
• your work is being prepared for commercial distribution; and,
• your work is one of the following: motion picture, musical work, sound recording, computer program, book, or advertising photograph.

Related Sources

- Publish A Book – Self Publishing Guide

- Schiel & Denver UK Book Publishers