BookRiff, a Vancouver-based company that promises to allow consumers to mix print content and create their own books and e-books, is scheduled to launch Oct. 6. Publishers who will make their content available for purchase in pieces as small as individual chapters include O'Reilly Media, Harvard Common Press, Stonesong Press, Sterling Publishers, EnThrill Entertainment, as well as Douglas & McIntyre, Greystone Books and New Society Publishers. The last three are all part of D&M Publishers, the Vancouver-based independent house where BookRiff began before it was spun off as a separate company. Canadian author Timothy Taylor and several other independent authors are also making content available.
Although BookRiff began with the idea of enabling consumers to create compilations or “riffs” of material from various sources in a print-on-demand book, the October 6 launch will be for e-books only. The launch for the print-on-demand books, which will be produced in partnership with Ingram, will follow later this year or early in 2012, CEO Rochelle Grayson told PW. “
“We’ve spent really the last year focusing primarily on the whole digital space and creating the tool that allows people to mix and match these epubs while maintaining all of the licensing and attribution for the original content owners,” said Grayson. “We’re primarily dealing with epub format largely because we’re dealing flowable texts and digitial readers as the output. We do handle pdfs and that’s what we would use for print on demand… We do images, color, text. Our system can handle video and audio, although when we launch we’re holding back on those features initially just because we want to make sure everything is working smoothly.” The launch had been planned for September 30 but was delayed by a technical issue, Grayson said.
The response to the concept, however, so far has been “phenomenal,” she said. Grayson expects that there will be a big market for BookRiff in the educational sector with professors and instructors being able to compile course material from various sources, all of which will be properly compensated. BookRiff uses an agency model, so publishers control prices and set permissions and regulations. So far, content is focused on health and fitness, parenting, and technology
Grayson will make a presentation at the Frankfurt International Book Fair on Oct. 13 on the Sparks Stage.
