Firebrand Technologies has announced that, effective December 31, it will close down its Preview-a-Book service. The service has produced nearly 1 million book excerpts for sale to retailers and libraries.
Originally founded by Stanley and Betty Greenfield in 1993 as Dial-a-Book, Firebrand bought the company in 2014 from Betty several years after Stanley’s death. “It has been an honor to carry on the Greenfields' groundbreaking work, and we feel confident that by year's end, we will have brought Preview-a-Book to its logical conclusion,” wrote Firebrand chief igniter Fran Toolan in a letter to clients.
In explaining the reason for shutting down the service, Toolan noted that “the proliferation of technology that allows book excerpts to be created on the fly has all but killed the demand for a service like Preview-a-Book.” And while excerpts still have an important place in the book marketing world, Toolan said, “today, retailers and libraries are using automated systems to create book excerpts and consequently, do not need the help of a specialized service.”
