Just several weeks after announcing a deal with Ingram, secondhand-book service Alibris has come to an arrangement with Barnesandnoble.com in which selected Alibris titles will be for sale on bn.com.
Barnesandnoble.com already has a partnership with Advance Book Exchange, another secondhand service. Under the new deal, bn.com will build a single database that will include all ABE books and any Alibris titles that aren't already listed on ABE. If the book is listed in the Alibris database, the customer will be able to buy the book directly from bn.com; if it's on ABE, the purchase can be made directly through the dealer from which the title originates. For visitors to their respective sites, Alibris handles shipping and warehousing, while ABE simply matches up dealer and buyer. Bn.com declined to comment on whether it and Alibris will share revenue from Alibris purchases made on the bn.com site.
Together with Barnes & Noble Inc.'s investment in iUniverse, the deal increases the breadth of backlist titles available through bn.com. Bn.com has already devoted a section to titles with a peg, such as out-of-print books from Patricia Highsmith, whose The Talented Mr. Ripley was recently released as a film. "Whether it's antiquarian, rare or just out-of-print, we take the approach that a book is new if you haven't read it yet, whether it's frontlist or backlist," bn.com v-p Tom Simon told PW. In other bn.com news, the site has spent $40 million for a 40% stake in eNews, an online magazine subscription service that offers discounted rates for more than 900 titles. ENews has already been supplying magazine content to the site.
