Indie ebook sales: Copia to the rescue? says ShelfAwareness ...

With Google eBooks ending its role as the main source for independent booksellers to sell e-books online, effective at the end of January, one of the companies stepping up to provide an option for indies to sell e-books is?Copia. Its platform, which bookstores brand as their own, offers retailers e-commerce for books and other media (including music and magazines) and product information, all with a social networking emphasis. The company already provides website platforms for some 900 college stores, including Stanford University and the University of Kansas, and, through the Australian Publishers Association, is rolling out a platform for independent bookstores Down Under in August. Copia sells some five million book titles in all formats.

?We offer a totally turnkey operation,? said Joann Spyker, v-p, field sales and higher education at Copia. ?And our platform is built around the concept of communities, which is the role and mission of independents. The platform is built and branded with their name, and it?s an extension of their existing business and bricks-and-more stores, a social center for books and other media and will enhance the ways independents already service their customers.?

?We?re the biggest white-label solution out there,? Seth Kaufman, v-p of marketing and merchandising, added. ?With Google dropping out, we feel we?re part of the solution, not part of the problem.?

On Copia, readers can share their views on books and what they like to read. E-books can be read on devices like the Nook and Kobo, and Copia has a free app that, among other things, allows readers to make notes in margins that can be shared.?

For bookstores, Copia offers what Spyker called ?a simple net revenue share model. On every transaction for e-books or e-content, we share a portion of revenue with the bookstore.? There is no initial cost to bookstores for Copia, and whether a customer comes into Copia through the bookstore or returns directly to Copia, Copia tracks the customer as that store?s customer and shares revenue from his or her purchases.?

Copia is talking with major independent bookstores and the ABA about possible cooperation, Spyker said. Already one indie is using Copia to sell e-books.?

On?the website for A Book for All Seasons, Leavenworth, Wash., there is a box for the ?ABFAS eBookstore powered by Copia,? which links to an?A Book for All Seasons version of Copia. There, under the tagline, ?We Just Got a Little Bigger,? owner Pat Rutledge says, ?Our new site gives you access to millions of titles?including eBooks you can read on almost any device?plus our usual great book choices. So browse the bookstore, take your bookclubs and reading groups online in Community, and download the best free eReader app.?

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