NBC News enters sizzling e-book publishing world

The book publishing world seems to get more crowded by the day, thanks to the boom in e-books and the popularity of their readers.

NBC News has now entered the scramble, becoming the latest entrant in the e-publishing universe. The news organization is launching NBC Publishing, which will focus on turning out enhanced e-books using NBC’s current video and archival footage.

“We have over one million hours of archival video content going back to the ’20s and a really low cost structure to edit it and put it together,” Michael Fabiano, general manager of NBC Publishing, told Digital Book World.

Repurposing NBC news coverage, the new imprint will publish eBooks and digital singles based on current events, Mediabistro reports. It will also work with independent authors who use NBC’s resources.

NBC’s leap into e-books is not surprising given the staggering growth in e-book sales. A Pew report published today shows that ownership of tablets and e-books nearly doubled over the holiday season.

“The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between mid-December and early January and the same surge in growth also applied to e-book readers, which also jumped from 10 percent to 19 percent over the same time period,” the Pew report says.

The next phase in the e-book phenomenon may be overload.