Penguin, Texterity Ink E-book Conversion Pact

Calvin Reid |

Nov 20, 2000

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Penguin, Texterity Ink E-book Conversion Pact Calvin Reid -- 11/20/00 Penguin Putnam took another step toward entering the nascent e-book market, announcing an agreement with Texterity Inc., an e-publishing services company, to begin converting the existing Portable Document Files used to produce its print titles into XML and e-book formats for subsequent distribution. Bob Cavosi, a Penguin Putnam spokesperson, told PW the deal involves converting "thousands" of titles. Penguin Putnam's electronic distribution is through Lightning Source, but, Cavosi said, the house is still considering which titles will ultimately be released as e-books. Penguin Putnam currently has an agreement with Peanut Press to produce e-books for Palm OS devices and a limited agreement with Gemstar for its line of handheld reading devices. Texterity (www.texterity.com) is a Massachusetts-based company whose ASP (application service provider) model provides a variety of Web-based back-office digital services to publishers. ASPs give firms access to complex software applications without having to maintain and update the software. This new agreement will put titles into a form that can be further converted to any of the currently available e-book formats. Cimarron Buser, a spokesperson for Texterity, told PW that PDF files are often converted manually. However, the company's TextCafe, said Buser, is a "fully automated, volume-oriented service. We offer high quality and accuracy, short turn-around times--minutes and hours, rather than days and weeks--and it's cost effective." The company also offers a suite of digital services, including BookBank and Edlet, that work in conjunction with TextCafe to allow publishers to upload files, edit texts and generate a variety of pre-publication digital files for print books or for e-book formats, all done over the Web through a secure logon. Buser told PW, "We've moved from providing digital consulting to a digital self-publishing model that is going to be more attractive to publishers ." Phyllis Grann, CEO of Penguin Putnam, called the agreement another step toward "providing consumers with easy access to our authors' works, no matter what secure e-book software, device or system they choose."

News

Penguin, Texterity Ink E-book Conversion Pact
Calvin Reid -- 11/20/00

Penguin Putnam took another step toward entering the nascent e-book market, announcing an agreement with Texterity Inc., an e-publishing services company, to begin converting the existing Portable Document Files used to produce its print titles into XML and e-book formats for subsequent distribution.

Bob Cavosi, a Penguin Putnam spokesperson, told PW the deal involves converting "thousands" of titles. Penguin Putnam's electronic distribution is through Lightning Source, but, Cavosi said, the house is still considering which titles will ultimately be released as e-books. Penguin Putnam currently has an agreement with Peanut Press to produce e-books for Palm OS devices and a limited agreement with Gemstar for its line of handheld reading devices.

Texterity (www.texterity.com) is a Massachusetts-based company whose ASP (application service provider) model provides a variety of Web-based back-office digital services to publishers. ASPs give firms access to complex software applications without having to maintain and update the software. This new agreement will put titles into a form that can be further converted to any of the currently available e-book formats.

Cimarron Buser, a spokesperson for Texterity, told PW that PDF files are often converted manually. However, the company's TextCafe, said Buser, is a "fully automated, volume-oriented service. We offer high quality and accuracy, short turn-around times--minutes and hours, rather than days and weeks--and it's cost effective." The company also offers a suite of digital services, including BookBank and Edlet, that work in conjunction with TextCafe to allow publishers to upload files, edit texts and generate a variety of pre-publication digital files for print books or for e-book formats, all done over the Web through a secure logon. Buser told PW, "We've moved from providing digital consulting to a digital self-publishing model that is going to be more attractive to publishers ."

Phyllis Grann, CEO of Penguin Putnam, called the agreement another step toward "providing consumers with easy access to our authors' works, no matter what secure e-book software, device or system they choose."

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