Something a little different this week. Marcus Woodburn is Vice President, Digital Products at Ingram Content Group, a company at the epicentre of the global book and ebook ecosystem. One of their most recent and most interesting acquisitions is Aer.io (formerly Aerbooks), which enables publishers and authors to sell their books natively on the social web and from their own sites (unlike Amazon’s widgets, this is a direct sale and gives the seller access to the purchaser’s data, which is vital for building a relationship for the future).
I think this is revolutionary – it turns the entire web into your shop front, and reduces the friction between the impulse and the decision to buy. It’s even more exciting than that: you can create new versions of a book for specific channels, so for example you could create or customise a book for clients on a particular course.
It’s live in the US but – frustratingly – not yet available in the UK and EU as Ingram are still ploughing through the Byzantine tax regulations that govern our markets. I’ll be first in the queue to try it out on Practical Inspiration titles once it’s live.
Marcus and I talk about how bookselling is changing, and the opportunities the new tools and channels open up for business book authors.
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