Baker & Taylor, one of the world’s largest book distributors, has reached a new agreement with self-publishing giant Smashwords. This will put close to 100,000 ebooks on the Blio platform and bolster the portfolio immensely.
Blio was originally developed by K-NFB reading and supports all of its content across a wide range of devices and platforms. Using Blio, readers can sample and purchase Smashwords books, create digital libraries for purchased and sampled titles, publish text or YouTube video book reviews, and “favorite” their chosen authors, publishers, and titles. This new distribution agreement goes beyond offering ebooks for sale on the internet, but now makes those books available to public libraries. Baker & Taylor rolled out a new platform not too long ago called Axis 360 and Smashwords books will be available digitally in any location subscribing to the service.
“This agreement expands the global reach of the Smashwords distribution network,” said Mark Coker, founder Smashwords. “Blio offers a rich digital reading experience for our reflowable books, and is widely accessible across a range of devices and operating systems. I’m also pleased to see our books gain increased exposure to library patrons as Baker & Taylor rolls out its new Axis360 digital media platform to libraries in the months and years ahead.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
