Bloomsbury launches Connect e-book service

Bloomsbury is to launch an e-book distribution facility Bloomsbury Connect, which will offer e-book conversion and distribution into the four English-language markets. The new initiative will provide competition to Faber Factory, which already has more than 50 clients.

The service will be run by Evan Schnittman, Bloomsbury's managing director for group sales and marketing, and, according to Schnittman, will go live soon. It follows the launch of Bloomsbury Reader last week, which will bring titles back into publication via print-on-demand and digital. The service plans to launch with some of the publishing houses Bloomsbury already handles physical distribution for on board. These include V&A Publications, Duckworth, Alma and Oneworld. Commission will be between 15-20%, depending on the publisher's volume and scale, with preferential rates from a conversion house.

Schnittman told The Bookseller: "It is about aligning all of the things you need in order to have successful e-book sales. We've done the negotiations globally, we've already got smart deals in place, we know how to do this, and we are now aiming to leverage that. We've got this set up and so our clients won't have to do it all from scratch."

Schnittman declined to say which clients had signed already, but said he expected to launch with two existing Bloomsbury clients using the new service, and within 12 months he hoped to have 10 clients. Bloomsbury will give its clients the opportunity to publish under wholesale terms or agency rates.