Atomic Dog Publishing, which celebrated its first anniversary last month, has reached a co-branding agreement with Copperhouse Publishing of Incline Village, Nev., under which Atomic will assume all day-to-day operations of Copperhouse, including distribution and marketing. Rick Anderson, founder of Copperhouse, will continue as a consulting editor. Copperhouse has a list of 47 college textbooks in the criminal justice and criminology fields.
The Copperhouse deal provides Atomic with more content that can become part of the company's HyBred Media program, which combines online content delivery, interactive media and print. According to Erin Powers, marketing and communications specialist for Atomic, the company's business model focuses on creating online textbooks that include numerous features such as animation and quizzes that are not found in the print edition. Prior to the Copperhouse agreement, nearly all of Atomic's 15 texts were adapted from texts that professors had written and posted on their own Web sites. Atomic acquired the rights from the professors, added some new online features and made print editions available to students who prefer not to read on screen or download the entire book. Powers said that all of the Copperhouse books that are suitable for the online format will be made part of the HyBred program when the books are revised.
Atomic offers both online-only texts and print textbooks that also include online access; in all cases, the online texts are less expensive than the print versions. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd edition, for example, sells online for $14, while the print edition is $40. Powers said that last fall only about 20% of orders were for the online-only edition, but for the spring semester these orders increased to more than 50%. Atomic's inside sales staff markets its line to college professors—who only require that students buy the online edition—and students can buy the materials directly from Atomic's Web site (www.atomicdog.com). Powers noted that Atomic's online offerings are "perfect" for distance learning classes, and the company is hoping to expand its sales through that channel.
Atomic was founded in Cincinnati by Alex von Rosenberg, a former executive at Prentice Hall. It currently has 34 employees.
