The Sword Of Oz Celebrates Successful Launch On PC And Next Generation Consoles - Figures And Expansion Pack Announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NextGenBooks.com today announces that "The Sword of Oz", an interactive ebook prequel to L. Frank Baum's masterpiece "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", has surpassed all expectations since its launch on January 19th. Since launching it has been played over 10,000 times and is showing incredibly strong patterns of growth with that number set to increase greatly throughout February.

Written by best selling fantasy author Darren Reid, The Sword of Oz combines book and game, allowing readers to manipulate the decisions made by the story's central protagonist, Arthur Gale, and choose their own adventure and path through the narrative. It launched with versions compatible for PC, Wii, DS, PS3 and PSP on January 19th and has exceeded all pre-launch expectations with over half of all players using a next generation console (Wii, PS3, PSP or DS) to experience the story.

By January 31st 50.041% of players accessed The Sword of Oz through their console browsers enjoying custom versions of the story for their respective formats. Reader feedback has been tremendous and also revealed a wide diversity in The Sword of Oz's audience which went far beyond the traditional 18-35 year old male audience. Other NextGenBooks.com titles also enjoyed great success in January including Darren Reid's other title The Genesis of the Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book Zero, a free prequel to his best selling series. In the case of this title it was read by almost the same number of Playstation Portable owners as played The Sword of Oz though both stories were extremely popular with owners of all supported consoles.

Commenting on the success of The Sword of Oz, author Darren Reid enthused "It is great to see so many gamers enjoying this title. Feedback has been phenomenal and the response overwhelming. It is also good to see Boris Johnson proven wrong and that even with titles like The Legend of Zelda and Resistance: Fall of Man to entertain gamers they are willing to sit down and enjoy an interactive novel on their new console."

Darren Reid is the author of the best selling fantasy novel The Lord of Darkness and Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book One and is currently working on his new print novel The Brotherhood of the Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book Two and a new ebook, The Half Broken Crown. He also wrote a short story, Cell, which was adapted by Parsec Award winning podcast producers Variant Frequencies into a smash hit audiobook.

To celebrate the successful launch of the Sword of Oz NextGenBooks.com is happy to announce the release of an expansion pack, The Emerald Ring, on February 19th. Like The Sword of Oz the expansion pack will be free and will greatly expand the story's second chapter. A novelized version of The Sword of Oz is a possibility in the future.

NextGenBooks.com launched in December 2006 with The Genesis of the Shadow: The Chronicles of the Shadow Book Zero as its flagship title. It has since expanded its range of console, PC and iPod ebooks to include a range of classic novels including L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, H.G Well's The War of the Worlds and Arthur Conan Doyle's The Return of Sherlock Holmes. From the end of February onwards a range of new fantasy and science fiction tales from some of the genres' best up and coming authors will go live.

Interview and review requests can be made through www.NextGenBooks.com. The Sword of Oz is out now and remains, for a limited period, free.