Digital rights management and marketing company DigitalOwl, located in Winter Park, Fla., and Independent Publishers Group have announced an agreement to market e-books from a variety of independent publishing houses through targeted Web sites and portals.
Effective immediately, consumers can preview, purchase and download the e-books, which range in price from $10 to $40, through IPG's Web site, ipgbook. com, as well as through DigitalOwl's retail network of Web sites and vertical marketplaces, which include Page1Books. com, ReadGoodStuff.com, Career.com, EmployMax.com, A1ComputerBooks. com and DigitalGuru.com.
Featured among the first wave of 40 titles are Redmond Technology Press's MBA's Guide to the Internet and the popular Effective Executive series by Stephen Nelson. Other e-book titles covered by the agreement include 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site and Internet Marketing for Less than $500 a Year from Maximum Press, Muska & Lipman's Cakewalk Power! and Lakeview Research's The Microcontroller Idea Book.
IPG CEO Curt Matthews said, "Our titles and authors are in demand, and DigitalOwl provides the most secure and efficient means to get these books to the people who want them, when they want them. By raising the awareness of IPG through its digital distribution channels, DigitalOwl gives us exactly what we need: broader reach for our specialty titles."
DigitalOwl CEO Kirstie Chadwick noted the effectiveness of using Internet portals to sell into niches, combining marketing and distribution in one operation. The agreement extends a recent push by IPG to concentrate on the technical book segment. In December, Joe Phillipp became IPG's first computer book representative, a move appreciated by the independents. Muska & Lipman founder Andy Shafran told PW, "Joe is great. He is very responsive to our needs and works well with our sales and marketing manager to stay more connected to Amazon and B&N."
