Simon & Schuster to add QR codes to all US books

Wednesday, 4 July 2012 Books+Publishing

Simon & Schuster, parent company of Simon & Schuster Australia, has announced that it will soon be putting QR codes on every print book it publishes in the US.

The QR codes will, when scanned, send consumers to an author’s mobile page on the Simon & Schuster website, where they can access multimedia information about the author and will be encouraged to sign up for email alerts.

The QR roll-out will not be adopted by Simon & Schuster Australia, however. Managing director Lou Johnson told Bookseller+Publisher that ‘while we’re not planning on rolling this out across all our books, it’s certainly a question we ask ourselves with every book we publish’.

Johnson said the publisher had decided to print a QR code on Posie Graeme-Evans’ new book ‘to showcase the incredible trailer she directed to promote the book because, in this case, we have this great content that we know her fans are going to want to see and will add to their experience of reading the book’.

Johnson said that the take-up on QR codes in Australia ‘is still pretty small’, but said S&S believes ‘it’s a great space to play in and develop’. ‘As publishers we have access to all this amazing material that sits outside of the actual book and now the technology is enabling us to share it!’

Category: Local news