GalleyCat reported today that LibreDigital, a digital distributing company, has secured roughly $8.1 million in funding from investors S3 Ventures, Adams Capital Management, and Triangle Peak Partners. This is a huge deal for a company that earlier this year received an “Apple Approved eBook Aggregator” designation.
Why does this matter? Well, LibreDigital offers a service called LibreAccess which the company’s website describes as: “LibreAccess is a Web-based service to ensure your e-books are available on Apple’s new iBookstore for Apple iPad customers in the United States and Canada.” Considering analysts predict sales of 10 million iPads this year, it matters a great deal that a company who makes books compatible for the iPad receives lots of private funding. I’m sure Steve Jobs is just as happy as LibreDigital.
And besides Apple’s obviously profitable liason, LibreAccess also works with publishers HarperColins, Hachette Book Group USA, and Simon & Schuster among others. This support basically means these publishers are ensuring their titles are easily available for the iPad. With the support of these major publishers, Apple, and $8.1 million dollars, it’s inevitable that LibreDigital will be a major player—even if under the public radar—in the e-book industry.
And speaking of the e-book industry, the International Digital Publishing Forum has reported that just in January and February 2010, US trade wholesale e-book sales were in insane $60.8 million dollars. To give you an idea of what a drastic rise in sales that is, in all of 2008 sales were a little over $50 million. Already the first two months of this year have exceeded the whole of 2008. Last year sales were about $170 million, which, considering 2008 sales, is also insane. But if January and February are an indication for the remainder of 2010, it looks like e-readers and e-books are finding peoples’ hands more and more everyday.
LibreDigital’s CEO, Russell P. Reeder, predictably optimistic about e-books sales for 2010, as well as his company, said “[t]his years sales of [retail] e-books are expected to double to more than $700 million in the U.S. alone.” And regarding the company’s massive influx of investment funds, he added, “[t]his funding will be used to accelerate the delivery of e-books, and expand our technology offerings to include new solutions that help publishers better promote and sell books to digital consumers.”
You know, as much as I don’t buy in to the “death of print” hoopla, it’s safe to say we are living through a profound change in content delivery that will drastically change many peoples reading habits. For the good or for the better? Well, that’s what our future hindsight is for!
Cheers, Nathan
