F+W Media is launching a series of e-book subscription sites aimed at enthusiasts in particular niches beginning with the Artist’s Network eBooks Book Club. The art community subscription site, http://ebooks.artistsnetwork.com, features more than 100 full-color art instruction titles.
For a yearly subscription of $199, subscribers to the Artist’s Network will receive unlimited access to all titles for as long as they remain subscribers, explained F+W chairman David Nussbaum. Using Impelsys software, the e-books can be delivered to subscribers via computer, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Android mobile device. The sites allow subscribers to access new titles, take notes, add bookmarks, and create a library of titles viewed. The reader contains tools to zoom in on text or images and change orientation and layout.
Nussbaum said he expects to have about six subscription sites running by the end of the second quarter. Other sites in the works are on writing, design, firearms, woodworking, genealogy, craft, and romance fiction. Each site will have their own prices and use terms. Nussbaum believes the creation of the subscription services will help solve the discoverability problem by offering a range of titles to different communities.
