Books are one of the great defining inventions of our civilization—and today they are poised for a revolution. Our goal is to create a new kind of book that makes use of emerging consumer platforms such as iPad, as well as the latest computation capabilities and high-performance visual media. We believe that we now have the capability to redefine the book, reinvent publishing, and forever transform the act of reading.
It takes a broad set of skills to build truly great titles that do justice to our new medium. The author, editor, photographer and art director remain at the heart of the creative story-telling process. Now they must be joined by software engineers, videographers, video editors, sound specialists, interaction designers and social media experts.
Touch Press brings together exactly this diverse set of talents and unites them with a common vision: to produce and publish beautiful living books that sparkle on the new digital stage. Our aim is to make our readers say "wow!"—and to open their eyes (and sometimes their ears) to the wonders of each subject.
The Elements: A Visual Exploration is our first title, released to coincide with the launch of Apple's iPad. We hope you'll agree that this book represents a milestone in publishing—demonstrating some of the remarkable possibilities for books of the future. For us, The Elements is a manifesto—that sets out the approach we intend to follow across a broad range of subjects in science, technology, popular culture, the arts and beyond.
Several common threads will run through our publishing endeavor. First is the concept of seamlessly blending interactive video and audio into text in new ways that help readers engage with each story we tell. The Elements, for example, includes over 500 directly manipulable 3D rotations that give readers a tangible connection to each of the remarkable objects featured in the book.
Secondly, our books will include fundamentally dynamic components. They will be filled with active access to live data and visualizations—giving the reader unprecedented ability to go beyond the original text, and deeply explore a subject for themselves. This breakthrough capability is made possible by Touch Press's close partnership with Wolfram Alpha and the Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine.
Thirdly, every one of our books will be delivered with passion. Passion for the subject matter. And passion to communicate. The principals at Touch Press are all themselves distinguished authors—with passionate interests that range across science, history, nature, technology and the arts. We look forward to creating great books in these and other subject areas, and to working with authors and partners who share our enthusiasm for the potential of the new medium.