Continuing its bid to have a presence in all bookselling categories, Barnes & Noble announced last week that it has bought a 49% share of on-demand publisher iUniverse.com, formerly known as t xcel. iUniverse hopes to publish about 2000 titles per month, half of which will not have been published before; the other half will be out-of-print titles. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The purchase signals an important foray into a new arena for the retailer. By the end of the month, customers will be able to browse through selected iUniverse titles in endcaps in nearly all of Barnes & Noble's 522 superstores as well as learn about additional iUniverse titles. Eventually, customers will also be able to order all iUniverse books from bn.com. (Mall stores will not be included.) The imprint will be marketed and labeled with the press's name. Barnes & Noble also said that on-site machines are not planned for the immediate future, but could happen in three to five years.
"Just as Barnes & Noble revolutionized bookselling, iUniverse.com will revolutionize and liberate publishing forever," B&N vice-chairman Steve Riggio said in a conference call with the media.
The move represents a sort of vertical integration that could allow B&N to have a say not merely in the marketing and retailing of books, but aspects of publishing as well. Riggio told PW that B&N would help iUniverse "identify [publishing] opportunities." He also said there is "no guaranteed shelf space" in B&N stores for particular iUniverse titles. For its part, iUniverse gains access to marketing dollars and mainstream acceptance, as the press tries to break down the sense that it is a vanity house. But even after the deal, iUniverse CEO Richard Tam told PW, the company will continue to make sovereign decisions. "We are not a Barnes & Noble company. We are a publisher," Tam said.
In a statement announcing the deal, Barnes & Noble focused less on customer choice and more on the muscle this would lend its publishing program. B&N currently publishes more than 1200 titles in its own program; Riggio said the two programs "will have nothing to do with each other."
iUniverse.com, which uses IBM's technology for its on-demand operations, changed its name from t xcel over the summer. It has two programs: one for new authors and another for out-of-print titles. Costs to publish can run as low as $99, and iUniverse allows authors to spend $299 to plug into a Writer's Digest network of editors. Royalties range from 20% for print (i.e., on-demand sales) and 50% for electronic sales.
The B&N investment could pose a further threat to what has historically been independent booksellers' strength: backlist titles. But Tam expressed interest in partnering with other booksellers. "Our main interest is content," he said. "We want to sell through as many outlets as possible." And publishers remain enthusiastic about on-demand. "Random House is gung ho supportive of what we call short-print-run technology," said spokesman Stuart Applebaum. "The ownership of the various technology components will not influence our support and drive forward."
