The wonderful people over at The Book Depository have rolled out a free ebook program. Kieron Smith, Managing Director of The Book Depository, said [in their press release]:
We wanted to give our customers a really wonderful present this Christmas. We’re continually working to increase the number of books that we have available on our website – 2.4 million at present, which is an unparalled number. Ebooks are much talked about at the moment but difficult for people to try, this gives people a chance to experiment, read something new and try ebooks all at no risk and free of charge.
We’ve not launched ebooks for sale as yet, but will do soon, this promotion is a great way for us to start talking to our customers about what they want from the format.
Quite wonderfully in my opinion, the program uses PDF. After all most people who don’t know anything about ebooks, know about PDF and feel confident in downloading them. I think the ebook program is nicely executed. It is smooth, fits into the rest of the site where you would expect it and offers something very interesting to readers.
I’m hoping this also drives print sales for The Book Depository’s Dodo Press. I’ve downloaded these two (1,2) for free, what will you get?
Lots to enjoy here,
Eoin
Filed under: Books, Bookselling, Business, Digital, Distribution, Future of Books, Future of Publishing, Innovation, Publishing, Book Depository, Business, Classics, Content, Digital Publishing, Distribution, e-books, ebooks, Free, Selling
Thanks for this post, Eoin. As an insatiable reader with overflowing bookshelves, this is a super way to try some tentative toe-dipping into the world of the e-book!