Epic!, an e-book subscription service for children, is adding digital titles from Macmillan to its inventory. The service offers access to a library of about 10,000 digital titles for $4.99 per month.
Macmillan will provide “a few hundred” children’s e-books to Epic!’s library, according to Epic! cofounder Kevin Donahue. When the Macmillan titles go live in a few weeks, Epic! will have titles from two of the Big Five publishers: HarperCollins and Macmillan.
Epic has also offered titles from Simon & Schuster but, Donahue said, while S&S titles “were very well-received on Epic!, given the timing elements in our contract, their titles are not currently live on Epic!” Donahue added, "We hope to make them available to the kids on Epic! again soon."
Donahue said that Epic!’s library of titles has grown from about 4,000 in mid-2014 to about 10,000 titles currently. About 700 titles are read-to-me audio-enabled e-books. He said the service has “seen great success with picture books, nonfiction and read-to-me titles. The picture book performance has been impressive. It’s probably been the most surprising to our partners.”
Although he declined to provide data on the number of Epic! subscribers, Donahue said the service will be “back in touch soon with some exciting metrics.”
Donahue called the addition to Macmillan titles to the Epic! inventory “an exciting milestone for our company. These wonderful titles will be very popular with our readers.”
