RH Latest Publisher to Use e-Readers In-House

-- Publishers Weekly, 3/31/2008 7:47:00 AM

Random House has joined the growing ranks of publishers using Sony Readers to distribute galleys and other preview material to employees. At its sales meeting over the weekend, the company announced that the entire RH field and home office adult and children sales staff will receive Sony Readers in early April.

According to RH, the company has bought “several hundred” readers for its sales management, reps, and home office sales support staff. The sales department will use the device to read manuscripts and other relevant material in digital form. The company’s goal is to, as quickly as possible, “eliminate altogether manuscript dispersal to our sales group by migrating this reading experience of many thousands of paper pages to the electronic reader,” said spokesperson Stuart Applebaum.

Hachette, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s are among the other companies that are already using the Reader to distribute ARCs and other material in-house. The complete story on their activities is in the March 31 issue of PW.