In another example of a printer creating a new venture in response to the growth of digital books, Louisville-based Four Colour Print Group has formed MyTabletBooks.com. The new division will convert illustrated print books into e-books which can be sold from the MyTabletBooks.com site.
George Dick, CEO of MyTabletBooks, said the division was formed in response to a number of industry trends--shrinking shelf space for print books, difficulty in getting quality conversions of illustrated titles, and the glut of e-books available for sale at major e-bookstores. MyTabletBooks offers publishers their own custom branded webstore contained within the site, and publishers electronically link to a webpage displaying only their titles. Publishers set the price for their books and can conduct special promotions. MyTabletBooks charges 20% for handling the e-book sales transaction, and there is no file transfer fee. MyTabletBooks will also provide publishers with customer data.
New Mexico Magazine and Paintbrush Tales Publishing are the first two publishers to sign up for the service, with NMM selling The Allure of Turqoise and Montezuma, Castle in the West, while Paintbrush is making the children’s title Peppermint available for sale. All three titles are priced at $9.99. Dick said MyTabletBooks will offer an affiliate program to independent bookstores, allowing them to participate in the profits of e-books that they direct their customers to purchase, either from the bookstore's own Web site or from in-store referrals made on behalf of their customers using a special discount code.
MyTabletBooks has partnered with companies in India to handle the digital conversions, while managing all traffic and quality control from its prepress division FCI Digital in West Carrolton, Ohio. E-books are being made available in a number of formats, including the standard .epub, fixed layout .epub, .mobi, PDF, and flash based PDF flip-books. Publishers pay an additional fee for downloads of DRM protected e-books.
