Wowio Tests New E-book Model

The hard sell behind new Web site Wowio.com is that you can download e-books legally, for free. The site, which launched in last year's fourth quarter, was begun with the intention of addressing the burgeoning market for downloadable textbooks. But now Wowio is trying to attract publishers of all sizes with all kinds of lists, hoping that its business model—corporate sponsorships—will persuade the big trade houses to get on board.

Wowio's sponsorship model, as CEO David Palumbo explained, allows advertisers access to consumers at what he called “touch points.” Palumbo said there are five touch points in the process of downloading a book and, at each one, readers will see a message thanking advertisers like Verizon Wireless (one of the site's current sponsors) for making the book selected available for free download. Publishers, Palumbo added, will get, on average, a dollar for every downloaded book.

Currently Wowio has 56 publishers signed up, and though none of the big five houses have committed, Palumbo said he is close to signing deals with some of them, but would not give further details.

Palumbo expects his company to become profitable by 2008. Among the bestselling categories are how-to and history, which Palumbo attributed to the strong community Wowio has built among homeschooling parents, many of whom are interested in educational texts.

Headquartered in York, Pa., with employees working remotely from other locations, Wowio is certainly attractive for small publishers. Six-year-old Vermont-based Nomad Press is one of them. “We've been doing e-books for years,” said Nomad's Alex Kahan, “and this completely eclipses any revenue we've gotten from them in the past about a hundredfold.” Kahan, who said his house does about 20 activity books annually, said exposure on the site is key. Kahan looks at the site as a way to sell e-books as well as to extend the house's brand and potentially lead to more print sales, and he said the site is ideal for niche publishers. Whether it works for big houses, which already have a strong presence in bricks-and-mortar stores, is another question. “If I'm HarperCollins, I'm not having trouble getting space at B&N, but if you're Nomad, it's not that easy.”