BookShout, a direct-to-consumer e-book platform specializing in e-book special sales and promotions, is partnering with Forest Incentives, a public media distribution vendor, to provide bulk orders of bestselling e-books to public radio and TV stations.
Forest Incentives brings longtime supplier relations with public broadcast stations to the partnership, while BookShout--which can deliver downloadable e-books supported by every major digital platform--provides the digital infrastructure for accessing the e-books. Titles included in the deal are from such publishers as Macmillan, Open Road Integrated Media, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins.
S&S executive v-p of sales and marketing, Michael Selleck, said direct access to public radio and TV patrons provides publishers with an “exciting" new revenue channel. “E-book special sales in non-retail channels has long been a final frontier. Public radio listeners and public television viewers are well-known as prolific readers and book buyers, and thus a perfect audience for this new sales e-book program.”
BookShout founder and CEO Jason Illian told PW that working through Forest Incentives, BookShout can provide a customized branded Web page with a code or link that allows a station to provide a free promotional e-book, or access to a special retail site. In other words, BookShout can facilitate both free promotional e-book giveaways, as well as branded for-pay retailing sites.
Illian said BookShout can work with corporations looking to add e-books to their offerings, or with indivdual authors, to give e-books away, or to sell them. BookShout revenue comes from broad licensing contracts or a percentage of sales, he said. He then added: “We have a hybrid revenue structure. It’s not one size fits all.”
