Online bookselling platform Bookshop.org has inked a partnership with Draft2Digital, one of the world's largest self-publishing companies, which will now offer its authors the ability to sell their self-published e-books on Bookshop.org.
The deal with Draft2Digital has the potential to add 1.2 million e-book titles from some 330,000 authors to Bookshop.org. At present, Bookshop already offers 100,000 D2D print titles for purchase, typically delivered as print-on-demand.
As of today, Bookshop.org is continuing to onboard titles, and while CEO Andy Hunter could not confirm the precise number of new titles for sale, he told PW it may be as many as 300,000 e-books on day one, depending on whether or not authors opt in to sell their books on the platform.
D2D CEO Kris Austin noted that that catalog has potential to build quickly, telling PW that company adds “about 10,000 to 15,000 new titles to our catalog every month.”
Hunter said that the arrangement is complementary for all parties involved. “Indie bookstores and authors have an outsider and iconoclastic identity,” he noted. “And their interests are aligned, as this will be a great way for indie authors to support their local bookstore, and vice versa.”
Furthermore, both Hunter and Austin said that it constituencies a means to further hew off market share from Amazon. “Amazon has our books for years and everybody else has them,” Austin said. “We think that indie bookstores should too, and we’re delighted that now they do."
