Feature Bookchoice
H
OT ON THE heels of a launch in Germany, Dutch digital book club company Bookchoice is prepar- ing for a UK launch which will include “huge”
partnerships with Waitrose, Boots and Network Rail. Founded in the Netherlands in 2014, Bookchoice is an e-book and audiobook membership service, offering users eight titles to read or listen to each month. It was recently aquired by Veen Bosch & Keuning, the Nether- lands’ biggest publisher. In the UK, subscribers will pay £47.88 upfront for a year’s access to the service. Publishers already signed up to the UK service include
Faber, Canongate and Bonnier. Bookchoice works with publishers on a title by title basis, and does not blanket sign whole lists, in an atempt to create a “completely focused and curated service”, according to c.e.o. Nathan Hull, who previously worked for Penguin and Danish e-book company Mofibo.
A selling point for publishers is the brand partnerships the company secures in order to reach readers. “We partner with brands in each market to extend market-
Choice words
A reading subscription service with a difference, Bookchoice seeks to give its users qualit, not quantit. Its c.e.o. Nathan Hull explains its stance and expansion plans to Natasha Onwuemezi
ing reach and interest in books generally, which is why I think publishers find it so appealing,” says Hull. “In Holland, we’ve worked with credit card companies, banks and glossy magazines, through to petrol stations, train services and airlines. With our brand partner- ships we find new readers or lapsed readers. We seek to tap into the entertainment junkies and get them read- ing.” Bookchoice’s UK launch partners include Waitrose, Boots and Network Rail, and in Germany the company parnered with Vodafone, women’s magazine Brigitte and airline Luſthansa.
A priorit for the company has been positioning itself as an international company as opposed to a Dutch- centric operation. This means “having to know a lot more about everything”, says Hull, citing different book laws and data-capture laws in each market. “There’s a whole heap of things to take on board,” he adds. A company with “loſty international ambitions”, it has employees in the Netherlands, the UK, Mexico, France and Australia. Hull says Bookchoice has a “healthy” number of
paying users (40,000) in the Netherlands, a country with a population of 16 million. “All the signs are good that we would proportionally hit the same numbers in all our other markets.” The company launched in Spain and Latin America in mid-August, and in October entered Germany, a “seismic step” up in terms of the size of the population and the publishing market compared to the Dutch and Spanish markets, says Hull.
The choice is ours Discussing the decision to create a curated service as opposed to an all-you-can-read offer, Hull says the USP of the company is that it “removes the hurdles for the reader. A lot of research shows that people tend to stick to the same kind of things to watch and listen to, or they listen to the same things over and over, but there’s no element of discoverabilit there. So [the selection] is about removing the hurdles for the reader. When you go to a service that has tens and tens of thousands of things, where do you even start?” Audio is an “incredibly important” area for Book- choice, with the company offering to produce audio- books for publishers. “We’re fully aware that different markets are in different stages of maturit in terms of the publishers knowing what to do with audio, how to make audio, how to deal with the rights etc. So as part of our offer we produce audiobooks for publishers,” says Hull. A publisher owning audio rights is “very appealing”
to Bookchoice, according to Hull. “We decided that for us, our business model is not about building an audio library, it’s about building a strong and trusting relationship with publishers, so that we are able to work with them on their best books.” Bookchoice is available to access on smartphones, tablets, computers and e-readers. Once downloaded, users are able to keep the audio- books and e-books permanently.
www.thebookseller.com 21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48
