Local distributor scores big with Haldeman memoirs.

Sony unit gets megadoses of publicity for new release

A Santa Monica software company has gotten a huge boost from a big dose of national, and free, advertising for its latest release -- "The Haldeman Diaries, Inside the Nixon White House."

Last week the recorded personal recollections of former President Richard Nixon's chief of staff H.R. Haldeman, were featured on two successive shows of "Nightline," the ABC-TV news program.

That followed renewed interest in Nixon's life and in his administration -- which ended in 1974 when he resigned from office as a result of the Watergate scandal -- sparked by the former president's death last month.

The release of the title by software company Sony Imagesoft could also be the first time a major publishing property appears simultaneously as a CD-ROM and a book, said Todd Harris, editor of CD-ROM World, a monthly consumer publication based in Westport, Conn. Previously, major books have been published well before they are put out on audio tape, computer software or CD-ROM.

CD-ROM, a read-only-memory compact-disk form computer disk, is an advanced type of personal computer software containing much more memory capacity than typical disks. In addition, the technology combines audio and visual effects into a "multimedia" form of software.

"It's also unique in that I understand that Haldeman specifically thought about presenting this as a CD-ROM as well as a book," said Harris. The book was officially released last Wednesday, May 18, with the CD-ROM scheduled to be released into retail stores this week.

In addition to the "Nightline" shows, media coverage was widespread on the release of "The Haldeman Diaries." For instance, the Los Angeles Times last week ran a front page story on the diaries.

"The interest has been tremendous," said Jeffrey Fox, director of communications for Imagesoft. "All the major media have covered this. We've gotten calls from everywhere from people who are interested in getting a copy and finding out about what's in it."

The CD-ROM version of "The Haldeman Diaries" includes unedited text of Haldeman's personal diaries, which he kept during his White House years of 1968 to 1973. In addition, it includes 45 minutes of the 27 hours of home movies Haldeman took while in the White House as well as 700 still photographs.

The CD-ROM also includes the full text of a 120-page letter Haldeman wrote while he was in jail to Watergate prosecutors making a case for his innocence. Haldeman spent 18 months in a minimum security prison starting in 1975 for his involvement in the Watergate affair.

Fox of Imagesoft, which is owned by Sony Corp., the $10.5 billion-a-year-in-revenue electronics company, said it was against company policy to release sales projections for "The Haldeman Diaries."

However, industry sources projected sales of between 50,000 and 100,000 copies of the CD-ROM. Each copy of "The Haldeman Diaries" will carry a listed retail price of $69.95, which would produce revenue of $6.9 million for Imagesoft if it sells 100,000 copies of the title.

The industry experts said the sale of 50,000 units of the CD-ROM would be considered a high number in the industry for a product other than a game title. Popular game titles can sell a million or so copies.

Industry experts said it probably cost Imagesoft at least $100,000 to actually produce the Haldeman disk.

According to industry sources, there are between 6 million and 8 million personal computers with CD-ROM capability in use in the United States. It's estimated that about 2 million of those PCs are in homes.

No one in the industry would hazard a guess as to how much Imagesoft paid for the rights to the materials. Fox of Imagesoft declined to comment on how much the company paid.

Imagesoft officials said in a statement that Haldeman compiled all the information specifically with the CD-ROM market in mind. When he died last November, Haldeman's survivors, including his wife, continued the process, said the officials.

Fox said the company's biggest CD-ROM sellers have all been game titles. He would not reveal specific numbers for those programs but said Imagesoft's most successful literary title to date was the "Mayo Clinic Family Health Book." The program sold 30,000 copies and another 350,000 copies have been distributed, or "bundled" with computer hardware.