Major Publisher Simon & Schuster Succumbs to Siren Song of eBooks
Social publisher Scribd and CBS-owned megapublisher of "real" books Simon & Schuster have just announced an agreement to sell Simon & Schuster eBooks in the Scribd Store.
The Scirbd store itself just launched last month. About 5,000 Simon & Schuster titles will be available through the Scribd store. Those titles will then be readable on Scribd.com, computer desktops, and various mobile devices. Simon & Schuster will also make thousands of printed titles available for preview with links to purchase from other outlets.
"Simon & Schuster is a major force in book publishing and is again leading the industry by recognizing the power of the social web to influence reading and buying behavior," said Scribd CEO and co-founder, Trip Adler. "We're thrilled to offer our users a one-stop solution for discovering, sharing, and buying written works of all kind, including bestselling books by one of the world's top publishers."
The Simon & Schuster content also will be available through the storefront and will be discoverable by browsing Scribd's categories such as "books" and "business." The publishing house will also be able to take advantage of social recommendations made through Scribd's social features, which include Twitter and Facebook integration.
"With millions of visitors and an extraordinary number of posted documents, Scribd has become an important destination for readers seeking written information that is relevant to their lives," said Ellie Hirschhorn, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer of Simon & Schuster. "We're pleased to offer them this convenient, user-friendly option for discovering, sampling, and purchasing Simon & Schuster books, any time and anywhere."
Scribd's Copyright Management System, which will apply to Simon & Schuster eBooks as it does to all other items in the Scribd store, will help to prevent the upload of unauthorized written works. Publishers have the ability to determine how works are read, including settings for "read only on Scribd.com," "download," and "download with DRM." Scribd also allows publishers to experiment with pricing, which can be changed easily and at any time.
ShareRelated Entries
1 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/11793
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Nice work on the alliteration!
We'll see how successful this venture is, but I'm glad that it's happening. Lots of competition in the eBook market can only be a good thing.
Scirbd is better than others.
There are often competing, but I believe this initiative will useful and successful Thenx
Who are Simon & Schuster and scrib(ll)d really screwing here? Methinks it's the consumer. Headline should be: "Simon & Schuster and friend unite to increase prices!" Get your ebooks at Fictionwise, BooksOnBoard or Amazon instead - if you care at all about your pocketbook same Simon & Schuster titles for less typically. The news in this announcement is that Simon & Schuster is going to make sure people pay more for their ebook by working with a company that built itself by selling un-authorized copies of books (stealing from authors and publishers both small and big) - like hundreds of others around the globe (check out Russia). They're probably good bedfellows if one recognizes that if a website isn't honorable with the publishing community and published authors, it's highly questionable that they would be honorable with their paying customers? There are much better deals and prices at honorable ebook websites like www.fictionwise.com (now owned by Barnes and Noble), www.booksonboard.com (still an independent - and the only place my friends and I have ever received good service in ebooks), Amazon (of course), Sony and others. Those companies offer a large variety of titles from big publishers and individual aspiring authors.
Will people ever stop pushing version rap numbers on the web!
http://www.hiphopalemi.net/Sohbet.asp