| OverDrive, Inc. has announced the launch of Content Reserve, a wholesale
digital book service for secure distribution of e-books and print-on-demand
(POD) files. Except for the wholesale cost of product and digital rights
management (DRM) fees for goods sold, Content Reserve’s services for managing
a publisher’s digital inventory and for retailers building an online e-book
catalog are free of charge to members. In association with Content Reserve’s
opening, OverDrive has published The eBook Industry Survival Guide, which
is available for free in e-book format at http://www.contentreserve.com.
"Within minutes of logging into Content Reserve a member publisher can
upload its e-book and POD titles into a reserve account, set pricing, select
DRM terms, and upload marketing information to help retailers merchandise
the title. The e-book is then immediately available for member retailers
to sell worldwide," said Pamela Turner, Content Reserve’s director. "There
is no cost for a publisher to open its reserve account and there is no
charge for member retailers to build their e-bookstores from the Content
Reserve database of books."
"OverDrive is playing a crucial role in helping iPublish.com make its
e-books available through the broadest channels of distribution and in
the broadest range of formats," said Laurence J. Kirshbaum, chairman and
CEO of Time Warner Trade Publishing. "We’re pleased to be working with
a company like OverDrive that shares our commitment to introducing more
and more readers to the pleasure and convenience of e-books." [See "AOL
Time Warner Introduces iPublish.com" on page 41.]
"Content Reserve was developed so a single copy of each e-book title
can be used for secure fulfillment for retailer sales all over the world,"
said Steve Potash, OverDrive’s CEO. "Content Reserve manages all the pricing
and marketing information and immediately alerts all member retailers to
changes made by the publisher."
Content Reserve network members include Prentice Hall Business, barnesandnoble.com,
RosettaBooks, efollett.com, W.W. Norton, Purdue University Press, McGraw-Hill
Professional, iPublish, BookSite.com, Warner Books, Cambridge University
Press, Powells.com, and Princeton University Press.
Source: OverDrive, Inc., Cleveland, 216/573-6886; http://www.overdrive.com. |
