HarperCollins Private Reserve Brings PerfectBound and Zondervan E-Books to Retailers Worldwide

 

New York, NY and Washington DC  (November 5, 2001) – OverDrive, Inc. and HarperCollins Publishers today announced the creation of HarperCollins Private Reserve, a digital warehouse for HarperCollins e-books worldwide.  Utilizing OverDrive servers and technology, HarperCollins Private Reserve allows the company’s divisions in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand to directly manage and distribute e-book titles and marketing information, effective immediately.

The HarperCollins Private Reserve supplies online retailers with e-book catalog information, and fulfills e-book purchases to their customers in the Microsoft Reader and Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader formats.  In addition, OverDrive’s technology allows HarperCollins to use its growing e-book library to promote the sale of both print and electronic titles – for example, offering electronic review copies or e-books bundled with print titles. The initiative includes HarperCollins’ e-book imprint, PerfectBound, and e-books from its Christian publishing group, Zondervan.

“OverDrive enables us to offer PerfectBound and Zondervan e-books to a rapidly growing group of retailers around the world,” said David Steinberger, HarperCollins President, Corporate Strategy & International.  “This new agreement builds on our established distribution relationships, enabling us to reach new markets and new customers and thereby continue the rapid growth in sales of our authors’
e-books.”

“This relationship is a major step forward for OverDrive,” stated Steve Potash, OverDrive CEO.  “Private Reserve was developed to allow publishers to manage their relationships with retailers directly for e-books, just as they do in the print world.  Our systems will allow HarperCollins to use a single copy of each e-book title for secure fulfillment of retail sales all over the world, to manage e-book marketing and promotions, and to access real-time sales information,” Potash added.  “At the same time, it makes the process of offering these e-books simple for retailers.”

WHSmith.co.uk, a leading U.K. online book retailer, is already offering PerfectBound e-books to its customers from the HarperCollins Private Reserve, and HarperCollins expects to announce further retail relationships in the near future.

OverDrive (www.overdrive.com) developed Private Reserve as an extension of OverDrive’s end-to-end solutions for enabling publishers and retailers to manage the growth of the ePublishing marketplace and as a result of its 15 years in digital publishing technology.  OverDrive is a Principal Member of the Open eBook Forum (OeBF) and a proud sponsor of the 2001 Frankfurt eBook Award (FeBA).  With world headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio OverDrive has offices in Amsterdam and operates an eBook Technology Center in Montego Bay, Jamaica. OverDrive is a strategic partner for eBook technology for Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE).

HarperCollins is one of the leading English-language publishers in the world and is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NCP, NCPDP). Headquartered in New York, the company has publishing groups in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia. Its publishing groups include the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada and HarperCollins Australia. The HarperCollins General Books Group is made up of four operating divisions: HarperTrade, Morrow/Avon, HarperInformation and HarperSanFrancisco. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at http://www.harpercollins.com.

Contacts:
OverDrive

Heather Kelly

S&S Public Relations

(317) 275-2275 x 23

HarperCollins

Lisa Herling

Director, Corporate Communications

(212) 207-7583

 

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