As part of their effort to move August House beyond its niche as a regional publisher aimed at libraries, the publisher's new owners have signed a distribution agreement with National Book Network. August CEO Steve Floyd said the distribution deal with NBN Kids will help August "move beyond our bread and butter in libraries." Floyd, whose Marsh Cove Productions acquired August this winter (PW, Mar. 28), said the agreement with NBN is also an acknowledgment of the "complexities of book distribution. Once we got our feet wet, we knew we needed to find a national distributor."
In addition to signing on with NBN, in the eight months since Marsh Cove acquired the publisher, the new team, in cooperation with AH former owners and head of publishing operations Ted and Liz Parkhurst, have been working to develop new formats that can be sold in trade markets and in the classroom. The first fruit of that effort is the Story Cove line, a series of 8x8 early reader paperbacks that tie to the Web, where more activities will be offered. "We're looking for a way to use the Internet to add value to our books," Floyd said. As part of that program, August House will rebuild its Web site to feature a storycove.com link, to be ready when the book line launches next spring.
