Hal Leonard released Hal Leonard Digital Books, a new platform designed to provide musicians of all instruments and skill levels with a fully-interactive, multimedia experience for hundreds of their most popular titles. These digital titles are available for retailer sales through the company’s Digital Retailer program.
“Our proprietary Digital Book program is unique in that it gives our retailers the ability to sell e-books. E-books have all the same benefits of our traditional books, but without the stocking, handling or shipping costs!” said David Jahnke, senior vice president, national sales. “Instead of giving their customers a physical book, retailers will be giving them a code to redeem online for an interactive experience. The timing is especially good right now when so many stores can only do business virtually.”
Unlike traditional e-books, the Hal Leonard Digital Books platform is designed for truly interactive learning experiences across both desktop and mobile devices. For titles that include video lessons or audio for demonstration or play-along, the digital content is embedded within the digital book so viewers can enjoy the media in context, without leaving the book experience.
All Hal Leonard Digital Books also feature auto-resume across devices, a quick search function, note taking and bookmarking capabilities, and at-a-glance chapter information.
“We’ve had a lot of requests for a better e-book experience,” said Jeff Schroedl, executive vice president of Hal Leonard. “We used our in-house team of programmers and musicians to create a custom platform we feel gives the best presentation of material possible. Our books are already available for Kindle and on iBooks, but our new proprietary platform is a better fit for our unique blend of music notation, text, and media.”
Retailers are able to sell Hal Leonard Digital Books through the Hal Leonard Digital Retailer program. Either in-store, or via their websites, retailers can order the books for their customers and forward the unique codes.
More than 300 titles are already available, including books for guitar, drums, vocals, and ukulele, with more being added every week. Titles include instructional books as well as songbooks.