Well, this is cool. Samuel French, the oldest and largest publisher of plays and musicals, announced this week that they will start to sell both plays and musicals in the popular eBook format.
Which means if you have a Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone or even your trusty old laptop, you’ll be able to read them.
They are on sale now and most of the plays will sell for $8.99. I just checked the site and it’s only available via iTunes and Apple products which leaves us Android owners out of luck but French plans to roll out their program in all eReader formats and titles will be available for sale from all major e-retailers by the end of 2012.
2012?! Dag. Anyway, no matter how long the wait, I think this is a great idea. One, because I’m lazy and having to drive to the Samuel French store or ordering it and waiting for it to arrive is a pain. Two, because when I want something, I’d like to have it right then and there.
The company is hoping that that by launching this new program, they will not only satisfy instant access demands from customers, but help broaden play readership and further expose the work of their authors.
Ken Dingledine, Director of Publications and Operations comments, “Being able to deliver an author’s content in an additional format will only enhance the reach of the creator’s work. We are witnessing a new generation of actors embracing technology in new ways we never could have imagined. We feel Samuel French has a responsibility to make our authors’ work accessible to this and future generations.”
Search the iBookstore below. I’ll be honest, I did and didn’t find much but keep checking back as I’m sure this will become popular.
Update: Kelly Christopher told me via our Facebook page that she just bought a play earlier today and that you can highlight, bookmark and even add notes to the eBook. “You can even take words from the play and look them up in the dictionary and search within the play, Google or Wikipedia using the highlighted word!,” she writes.
For more info, visit samuelfrench.com
I like 🙂
Just bought my first play a few hours ago on my iPhone. It’s awesome!
I’ve got an Android so – Grrr – its not available yet. Can you highlight or bookmark something? Like if you think it might make a good monologue?
Do you mean within the play itself? That’s a good question. Let me test it on my iPhone.
You can do both highlight and bookmark. You can even add notes.
Holy crap! You can even take words from the play and look them up in the dictionary and search within the play, Google or Wikipedia using the highlighted word! Oh snap!! (I’m new to the whole eReader world…can ya tell?)
Nice. I just added that to the post and credited you 🙂