Before entering the book business, Usov headed the Odesa branch of the Batkivshchyna party. According to him, he left politics about six months before the interview. Gutenbergz was founded in 2011 in Odesa. The team grew from two people: first a designer, an illustrator and an editor joined the founder, and by spring 2014 the bureau employed seven people. Usov says the publisher is more about testing ideas than releasing books in the usual way.
The idea for interactive books came to him in 2010, when he bought his first iPad. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes app was released in the App Store on December 2, 2012, about a year later than originally planned. The project cost 25,000 conventional units, as stated in the interview.
The Sherlock That Sold
According to Usov, Sherlock Holmes became Gutenbergz's most popular book in China, entered the top 10 in the US, gained a reputation in the App Store as the "scariest" book, and received an Apple mention in thirty countries. About 80 percent of sales came from the US. In a year, several hundred copies were sold in Ukraine, thousands in Russia, and tens of thousands in America. Back in March 2013, the business publication AIN reported 23,000 downloads and 70 percent of sales in the US, and the team then also numbered seven people.
The American market turned out to be the main one, so for a small Ukrainian team success meant primarily working with an audience overseas. Usov, however, does not build expansion on grand words. In the interview he emphasized a simple idea, which he formulated as: "Menshe, ta yakisnishe – a good motto for marketing." He was talking about how it is better to release fewer projects but make each one better.
Gadgetarium and the Grant
Gutenbergz's next project was to be Gadgetarium. It is a hybrid of a paper book and an augmented reality app: the history of gadgets "from antiquity to the iPhone" was to be released in English, Russian and Ukrainian. The release was planned for June 2014. The main feature, the "Gadgetbox," allows you to assemble your own device and share it with other readers.
The publisher was also preparing a free platform for interactive stories for media outlets. A demo was promised for April 2014. The work on it is supported by a GTF grant of 240,000 hryvnias: Gutenbergz became one of the first three winners in Ukraine.
Textbooks Instead of Entertainment
Further plans included a joint project with a children's author and a platform for interactive textbooks. Usov spoke briefly about it: "Osvita sohodni – tsya kraina zavtra." For a publisher that started with fiction, this was a notable shift from entertainment apps to education.
Ten days after the interview, on April 10, 2014, a joint presentation of interactive books prepared by Chytomo took place at the Book Arsenal in Kyiv. Gutenbergz's Sherlock Holmes was part of this program along with other publications, and for the Odesa team it became one of its first appearances before a Kyiv audience.
The experience with 3D graphics and printing that Usov gained in interactive books soon became the basis for a new company. In October 2014, he launched Kwambio together with Dmitry Krivoshey, and the publisher Gutenbergz remained a separate project with a narrower task.
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