Berrett-Koehler has added titles from New World Library to its b-to-b digital subscription service, BKpedia. The service, launched by B-K in late 2015, offers curated collections of e-books and articles around leadership, management and organizational innovation. The service has been populated with titles from B-K's list as well as those from the Center for Creative Leadership and AMACOM, the publishing arm of the American Management Association. New World will make its titles with a focus on personal and career development part of the service.
Bkpedia features curated content that can be accessed through e-readers, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. All content is DRM-free and consumers can either access the entire book or look at specific chapters through search functions. The service, which is delivered through Ingenta Connect, sells primarily to academic libraries with some corporate and government sales.
Johanna Vondeling, v-p of international sales and business development at BKpedia, said the goal of BKpedia is to expand publishers's sales into new areas. “Many of our partner publishers already have robust e-book sales programs, but—as was the case at BK for many years--these programs are often concentrated in the retail space, or are captured via large library aggregators. BKpedia instead offers our partner publishers opportunities to include their content in carefully curated collections that appeal to libraries and other customers with specific needs."
The service has a variety of subscription options from annual to perpetual, and even evidence-based, which offers an academic library the opportunity to use the frontlist collection for a year, after which they can pick 30 titles to use on an ongoing basis.
Currently there are 264 e-books and articles in the leadership/management category and 133 in the organizational change and innovation category. Subscription costs vary widely and are based on the organization’s needs. They are offering an early adopter discount, a 60-day free trial for academic libraries and corporations and seven-day trial for individuals. Authors are paid based on content views.
Leslie Crandell, executive manager of digital subscription and corporate sales at B-K, pointed out that there has been a substantial increase in the shift from print book purchases to e-book purchases in the academic library space. Vondeling added that B-K has reasons to feel quite optimistic about the growth of the business model with academic libraries. "While their budgets are always tight," she explained, "libraries are increasingly shifting their spending from print content to digital content.”
B-K is offering BKpedia to international customers as well as domestic. “We’re seeing a lot of requests right now from management institutes in India,” said Vondeling. “These developing markets are really hungry for this kind of content [about leadership, management and organizational innovation], and the market isn’t as saturated in the library world there as it is in the U.S.”
BKpedia is planning to grow its offerings and is launching a third professional and personal development collection in June and an economic justice collection by the end of August.
