NBN, IPG Begin e-Book Distribution

Judith Rosen |

Nov 20, 2000

News
NBN, IPG Begin e-Book Distribution Judith Rosen -- 11/20/00 Last week Independent Publishers Group in Chicago and National Book Network in Lanham, Md., entered into separate agreements to begin distributing e-books on their Web sites as well as to e-tailers and other content providers. The two agreements follow a similar announcement made by PGW three weeks ago (News, Nov. 6). "Our publishers are interested in it, and we felt we needed to explore it," Mark Suchomel, president of IPG, told PW. "Like the buzz at BEA, everybody's curious about it. Right now, we have no idea what the demand is going to be." Last week, IPG began offering e-books from Middleway Press, CCC Publishing and Top Floor Publishing. Brookside Press, Muska & Lipman, Practical Psychology Press and Wyrick & Co. have also signed on for the e-book program. Suchomel expects more of IPG's 325 publishers to join in the next few months. While IPG developed its program in conjunction with BookZone, which also hosts its ipgbook.com Web site, NBN has chosen two-week-old Publishing Dimensions, founded by Ken Brooks, for hosting, data warehousing and converting (News, Nov. 13). Publishing Dimensions will create electronic files that NBN can use on its recently installed print-on-demand equipment as well as for e-books in all formats, which will be available on www.NBNBooks.com early next year. "Since we're a distributor, each publisher will decide on a case-by-case basis in consultation with ourselves whether they want to have e-books," said Larry Fox, director of e-commerce for NBN. Rich Freese, senior v-p of sales and marketing at NBN, called the e-book component a part of NBN's ongoing investment in growth. At present, NBN is testing five titles in various e-book formats, although it plans to launch its e-book business with far more titles in January. "Simultaneously, we'll be creating POD files. We're really trying to make our site a book marketing site," Freese said. NBN is Publishing Dimensions' first client, although it has a number of agreements with publishers in the works and is already in the process of converting 1,000 titles into e-formats. "We're setting up our own conversion operation in India," said Brooks, who is also actively hiring staff here in the U.S. and looking for office space in New York. "Our intention is to get up to 25 people by the end of the year. If you take into account the employees in India, within a year we'll have upwards of 1,000 people."

News

NBN, IPG Begin e-Book Distribution
Judith Rosen -- 11/20/00

Last week Independent Publishers Group in Chicago and National Book Network in Lanham, Md., entered into separate agreements to begin distributing e-books on their Web sites as well as to e-tailers and other content providers. The two agreements follow a similar announcement made by PGW three weeks ago (News, Nov. 6).

"Our publishers are interested in it, and we felt we needed to explore it," Mark Suchomel, president of IPG, told PW. "Like the buzz at BEA, everybody's curious about it. Right now, we have no idea what the demand is going to be."

Last week, IPG began offering e-books from Middleway Press, CCC Publishing and Top Floor Publishing. Brookside Press, Muska & Lipman, Practical Psychology Press and Wyrick & Co. have also signed on for the e-book program. Suchomel expects more of IPG's 325 publishers to join in the next few months.

While IPG developed its program in conjunction with BookZone, which also hosts its ipgbook.com Web site, NBN has chosen two-week-old Publishing Dimensions, founded by Ken Brooks, for hosting, data warehousing and converting (News, Nov. 13).

Publishing Dimensions will create electronic files that NBN can use on its recently installed print-on-demand equipment as well as for e-books in all formats, which will be available on www.NBNBooks.com early next year. "Since we're a distributor, each publisher will decide on a case-by-case basis in consultation with ourselves whether they want to have e-books," said Larry Fox, director of e-commerce for NBN.

Rich Freese, senior v-p of sales and marketing at NBN, called the e-book component a part of NBN's ongoing investment in growth. At present, NBN is testing five titles in various e-book formats, although it plans to launch its e-book business with far more titles in January. "Simultaneously, we'll be creating POD files. We're really trying to make our site a book marketing site," Freese said.

NBN is Publishing Dimensions' first client, although it has a number of agreements with publishers in the works and is already in the process of converting 1,000 titles into e-formats. "We're setting up our own conversion operation in India," said Brooks, who is also actively hiring staff here in the U.S. and looking for office space in New York. "Our intention is to get up to 25 people by the end of the year. If you take into account the employees in India, within a year we'll have upwards of 1,000 people."

A version of this article appeared in the 11/20/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: