One of my favourite travel book publishers, Globe Pequot Press, has struck three deals with book platforms Oyster Books, Zola Books and Slicebooks.
Ebook subscription service Oyster is adding Globe Pequot books to its total of 100,000 titles being offered to members for $9.95 per month.
The publisher will also be distributing and selling through Zola Books, which is a great website that is steadily building up a wide-ranging roster of publishers offering books on the platform.
Zola has some impressive exclusives, including The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Niffenegger is an investor in the company, along with other authors.
It offers a bookseller partner scheme where indies can open up a storefront on Zola and get the majority of net revenue on book sold through their storefront.
Zola don’t, however, currently take books from self-publishers but authors can claim a page on the site.
The company is still working on a reader app that will let customers buy books for any device without worrying about the format.
Zola recently bought discovery site Bookish from leading publishers Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster. Bookish offers “If you like…” recommendations based on users’ choices and the site sells ebooks, print books and audiobooks although it also offers buying links to online sellers, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble and the iBookstore.
Probably the most interesting deal is with Slicebooks, which offers a fantastic service where publishers can slice and remix ebooks, journals and magazine content.
They can download the sliced content to their own networks or publish it on the Slicebooks Store.
The firm is also planning a Remix Service API which will allow publishers to offer remixing to their own customers to create their own custom ebook.
It’s a brilliant idea and looks ideal for travel books such as those published by Globe Pequot. I’m aiming to look further into the Slicebooks’ concept and will be writing about it in the near future.