Bookboon is a little known company that is making great strides in providing free and original ebooks online. The company has experienced over ten million downloads in the last few years and in 2011 had 500% growth in digital downloads.
Bookboon a Danish company, originally started in 2005 and focused on student textbooks written by their own in-house staff and freelancers. In 2010 they started to diversify their portfolio and integrated travel guides and business books. Currently they have over 1000 books on their website and 250 in production to be released over the course of this year. The company based on their success have moved offices to the UK and continue to operate their global headquarters in Copenhagen.
Thomas Buus Madsen the COO of Bookboon told Good e-Reader in an interview that “We have seen an immense growth in the US over the last year, and with over 200 new books coming up, we feel confident that we will reach a 10% market share in Q3 of 2012“.
So how does a company that gives a 1000 free original ebooks away make money and make the project financially viable? Sophie Tergeist from Bookboon told us that “Our motivation is that we believe that textbooks and education can be free. In our books every few pages, there are some advertisements. These are meticulously chosen to reach the person who downloads the book. Our advertising clients place recruitment or employer branding ads in the books (no unethical ads).
All of the companies books are available for free on their website www.bookboon.com and are in PDF format. This allows them to be read on virtually any e-Reader, Tablet, PC or MAC.
Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.