Jun

Bilbary Set to Launch eBook Rental, Agency Titles

GoodEReader has already profiled the pending launch of ebook sales and rental site Bilbary, founded by the former head of Waterstones, Tim Coates. With the recent US launch of the company and the site’s plans to begin renting ebooks as soon as the end of this summer, Amy Riach was on hand at BookExpo to increase the company’s exposure, focus the brand, and work on growing the already impressive list of agency contacts that has already led to over 400,000 ebooks on the Bilbary site to date.

While there are already sites that exist to loan ebooks, including some that use a Netflix-like freemium model for subscriptions, Bilbary’s plans for ebook rental are to cut out the commitment by simply loaning books on a per-rental fee basis. With the level of DRM necessary for the ebook, it will simply be removed from the device when the checkout period is over.

Bilbary has also developed two other features for upcoming incorporation: a global expansion with the plan of offering foreign language titles and a cloud book borrow system to allow browser-based reading in order to maintain a complete device neutrality.

GoodEReader is on location this week in New York for BookExpo America and the individual conferences that fall within the multi-day event, including tomorrow’s IDPF conference and the Digital Show and Tell on Thursday.

Mercy Pilkington (1129 Posts)

Mercy Pilkington is a young-adult author and a teacher in a correctional facility. She does not have a single textbook in her classroom. With the top-of-the-line technology at her disposal and the low reading ability of many of her students, there’s no need for standard paper texts. Instead she relies on e-readers, iPads, desktop PCs, Polycom video conferencing equipment for virtual field trips, live streaming for science demonstrations, and text-to-speech read-aloud software to teach English and science. Within the next ten years, public school classrooms across the country are going to look a lot more like Mercy’s classroom because the educational possibilities with these kinds of technologies are limitless. Have a question? Send an email to mercypilkington@yahoo.com