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Looking to turn its e-publishing expertise into a new business, O'Reilly Media is launching O'Reilly Digital Distribution, a new division offering publishers a complete e-book publishing service. Starting with text conversion, O'Reilly Digital Distribution can output files in any format for any device or e-reader and market and distribute the e-titles though an extensive and growing network of e-book retail channels.

In an interview conducted at O'Reilly's annual Tools of Change conference in Manhattan, Laura Baldwin, chief operating officer of O'Reilly Media, said the new service will offer free conversion as part of a comprehensive program that will secure and store a publisher's digital files and market and distribute them into 24 digital e-book retail channels (with 40 more under development) and in every format. ODD can turnout e-books for any format--from Kindle to iPhone to Stanza and Android readers like Aldiko. Publishers pay a fee of 25% of sales--no fees, she emphasized, until the e-books are in the sales channels. "We've automated the process of digital title conversion and production and for us this is all about sales and marketing," Baldwin said. "It's about getting e-books into the retail channels and there are more channels coming online all the time."

Baldwin said the service grew out taking over the distribution of Microsoft titles last year. "We won the bid because of our sophisticated digital infrastructure. It took us seven weeks to go live with 200 Microsoft titles and make them available as e-books and apps." A longtime champion of the e-book category, O'Reilly has seen its own e-book sales rise steadily and the publisher has been aggressive in offering e-books in all formats as well as bundling e-books with print. Andrew Savikas, O'Reilly's v-p of digital initiatives, has said that O'Reilly's Safari Books Online, a subscription service that gives it client access to library of digital titles, is its second largest sales channel.

The new division will be directed by O'Reilly Digital Distribution general manager Pascal Honscher and Baldwin said the company would be hiring new workers as well as promoting from within.

Baldwin said they were marketing the service to all kinds of publishers, not just technical houses. "We're looking beyond technology books to poetry and fiction," and she said the services and pricing can be customized to what a publisher needs. "If a publisher only needs conversion or only wants marketing and distribution support, we'll work with them to come up with a different price."

Baldwin compared the new service to the annual TOC conference: "The TOC is designed to help publishers and this service has evolved out of that. We know technology is driving the publishing business now, but people shouldn't have to deal with technology issues. We want to take the technological confusion and ambiguity away and help publisher get their books to readers."

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