As sales of e-books soar, publishers are doing all they can to multiply the platforms on which their titles are available, as well as to maximize digital distribution. NOVO Ink, a new digital distributor for the Christian market, aims to help by offering digitization and distribution for books and periodicals, using the device-neutral Zinio platform. The Colorado Springs-based company also sells titles—many exclusively--on its own Web site, www.novoink.com , which the company calls “family-friendly,” since customers will not find any material they might find offensive there.
NOVO Ink CEO and President Devlin Donaldson told RBL, “Publishers are asking themselves, how do we move forward into the digital world? The frontlist is there, but the struggle is finding the time and resources to convert titles,” especially backlist. When books go out of print and rights revert to authors, NOVO Ink provides services to help them republish in digital form.
Zinio , for which NOVO Ink has exclusive rights in the Christian market, offers features such as high-definition color, social media capability, clipping, zoom and search capabilities, page turning, thumbnail views, and embedded video and animation. Readers can download Zinio free to any device, although some readers can’t support all of the enhanced content.
Among NOVO Ink’s publisher clients are David C. Cook, Gospel Light, NavPress, and Tyndale House. Tyndale director of marketing services Alan Huizenga said, “Zinio is already an established platform that has been specializing in digital editions of magazines like National Geographic. We have been working with NOVO Ink on a limited basis, some frontlist, some backlist. If there is an opportunity, Tyndale has been willing to work with as many platforms as possible.”
NOVO Ink distributes titles to all standard retail outlets, and publishers can choose to have their books made available on the Zinio site.
