Incoming college freshman are often given their first homework assignment over the summer (gasp!) before the fall semester begins. Taking a page from the City Reads programs, many colleges are selecting a book that all incoming freshman students are “required” to readin preparation for first year orientation. The books selected typically serve as a jumping off point for a discussion on social, gender, race or other meaty issues.
Many publishers have entire divisions and department focused on supporting these programs. Random House, for example, has its Freshman Year Reading program and supporting materials. There are also educational organizations promulgating these programs and the addition of a digital component, including The National Resource Center for First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina and the National Orientation Directors Association.
Some universities subsidize the cost of the selected title and send out physical copies to students, while others provide the book at a discounted rate. Many colleges and universities are interested in offering eBook and/or digital audiobook versions of the selected title to supplement the physical book offerings. OverDrive can help!
Last summer, OverDrive worked with Purdue University to support its Common Reading Program by delivering the Random House title “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” in eBook formats.
OverDrive hosted a custom branded microsite where first-year students were able to enter a redemption code distributed by Purdue University. Students were then presented with a link to download their copy of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” in eBook format. OverDrive provided FAQs and other best practices documentation for inclusion on the microsite.
We encourage publishers, colleges and universities to contact OverDrive for more information about adding digital content to First Year Reading Programs around the country. Email OverDrive’s Publisher Partner Services team to get started.
This guest post was written by Josh Gertz, the VP of Marketing and Content Licensing for Hip Digital Media. Previously, Josh pioneered digital promotions as SVP at Neurotic Media and co-founded XACT Radio, an Internet radio network partnered with virtually every major broadcasting group. When not working, you can usually find him in the kitchen or at a poker table. Follow him on Twitter @joshgertz and @hipdigitalmedia.
I am constantly amazed at how quickly our world seems to change. Lately it feels like modern technology is a snowball rolling down a mountain growing ever faster, challenging consumers to have the latest and greatest almost hourly. As a child of the 70’s I can honestly say I remember a simpler time when the things we bought were expected to last forever. The family car, the family TV, dad’s home video camera – it seemed like these things never changed. Today our insatiable hunger for all things new leads thousands of crazed consumers to camp out overnight yearly in front of retail stores for the newest iPad or an unheard of discount on a flat screen for Christmas. We have even reached a point where TV commercials tout wireless customers who have new and exciting information 15 seconds before others.
This obsession with new technology fuels a worldwide connected web of computers and phones (and phones that look like computers) where everyone who’s anyone feels the need to check their friends status updates every 30 seconds. It also leads us to find our favorite brands online. Just like we wear them on our clothes, the logos and “likes” of our favorite brands on our profile page is a key part of our online identity. What logos adorn our pages – who we “wear” online, is a reflection of who we are.
So for brands who work so hard to generate fans and be worn by the coolest kids at the back of the bus…I ask you: Read more…
Based in the UK, Audiobooks Online has adapted with changing technology to provide their customers with the audiobooks they love. Audiobooks Online began in 1997 by renting audiobooks on cassette tapes under the name the Tape Exchange. The company has grown and evolved over time to include a separate retail store on their website alongside their rental business.
Through this retail store, Audiobooks Online prides itself on offering “a wide range of formats to suit your individual needs.” Indeed, their thousands of customers can purchase favorite audiobook titles as CD ROMs, preloaded MP3 Players, USB Cards, and now audiobook downloads provided through OverDrive.
Audiobooks Online describes their customers as people who “love books, but don’t have the time to read.” The addition of audiobooks from OverDrive will speed up delivery for those busy customers by allowing them to purchase, download and listen to their title, all within minutes.
The Audio Publishers Association has announced the finalists for the 2012 Audies Competition. The Audies, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association (APA), is the premier awards program in the United States recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken word entertainment. The APA has nominated 140 individual titles for categories such as best Audio Drama, Fiction, History, Humor, Non-Fiction, Solo Narration and many more!
We would like to congratulate our publisher partners who have 104 titles nominated for an Audie!
AudioGO/BBC Audio has 6 titles nominated in 6 categories
Blackstone Audio has 11 titles nominated in 7 categories
Brilliance Audio has 6 titles nominated in 5 categories
eChristian has 5 titles nominated in 2 categories
Hachette Audio has 9 titles nominated in 6 categories
HarperAudio has 11 titles nominated in 8 categories
HighBridge has 2 titles nominated in 2 categories
Hyperion Audio has 1 title nominated in 1 category
L.A. Theatre Works has 3 titles nominated in 2 categories
Listen & Live Audio has 3 titles nominated in 3 categories
Live Oak Media has 3 titles nominated in 1 category
Macmillan Audio has 9 titles nominated in 8 categories
Oasis Audio has 4 titles nominated in 3 categories
Penguin Audio has 1 title nominated in 1 category
Random House Audio/Books on Tape/Listening Library has 9 titles nominated in 8 categories
Recorded Books has 3 titles nominated in 2 categories
Scholastic Audio has 2 titles nominated in 2 categories
Simon & Schuster Audio has 1 title nominated in 1 category
Symphony Space has 1 title nominated in 1 category
Tantor Audio has 16 titles nominated in 11 categories
Weston Woods has 1 title nominated in 1 category
Zondervan has 2 titles nominated in 2 categories
Visit www.theaudies.com or the APA website for more information about the 2012 Audies competition and about the titles nominated. Congratulations to the publishers, authors, narrators and production staff for all the wonderful material!
The sun is out in Ohio, giving us a chance to see first-hand the progress being made on our new Blue Sky Campus. We’re near feverish with excitement about getting into the new building and equally excited about the ways it will support the eBook industry.
From the press release:
“OverDrive’s new tech campus will help accelerate the adoption of eBooks, audiobooks, music and video currently served through our 18,000 school, library and retail channel partners,” said Lori Soukup, OverDrive’s Chief Operating Officer, who is leading the campus development project. “We are proud to enable the world’s leading authors, publishers and studios to reach hundreds of millions of readers in 27 countries.”
The Blue Sky Campus will include a 95,000-square-foot facility on 12 acres of land, complete with outdoor meeting space, a small pond and a 0.3-mile walking path. The LEED-certified headquarters will include two indoor basketball courts, a fitness and wellness area, and digital test labs and training centers for the school and library training sessions we host year-round.
OverDrive is proud to continue its investment in Northeast Ohio. Not only is this the place CEO Steve Potash founded OverDrive in 1986, it’s also full of talented professionals and home to some of the most renowned libraries in the country, including the Cuyahoga County Public Library and Cleveland Public Library.
Jeff Morgan is a Marketing Communications Specialist at OverDrive.
There are some seriously bizarre weekly observations during the month of February. There’s Jello Week, Consumer Protection Week, National Secondhand Wardrobe Week and Pancake Week. Does anyone actually celebrate these things? With the exception of Love Your Pet Week (if you’re only doing this for one week, you probably should reconsider pet-ownership), we’ve been much too busy to participate in this tomfoolery, as we’ve been working to partner with all of these awesome publishers below.
Wisconsin Historical Society Press
I feel that one of the greatest, most unacknowledged wonders of the world is the fact that Minnesota is known for its ten thousand lakes, but Wisconsin is known for its cheese heads. They’ve got fifteen thousand lakes, and yet still the slogan “We’ve got more lakes than Minnesota” hasn’t caught on. Maybe you didn’t know Wisconsin had one hundred lakes, let alone, 150 times that. Maybe all you knew about Wisconsin was that Milwaukee is pronounced mee-lee-wah-kay, which is Algonquin for ‘the good land.’ If you fall into any of the categories above, its due time you check out some of the titles from the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. From butter to beer to Paul Bunyan, the badger state has never looked so great.
Innovative Language Learning
Ever stop and wonder how Waldo manages to travel around the world? Clearly he’s pretty well-off financially, but is he multilingual too? How else can one explain his uncanny ability to immerse himself in the native culture, lollygagging with his new found foreign friends? Clearly he must be hip to the collection of audiobooks and eBooks from Innovative Language Learning, one of our newest suppliers. With over 35 languages to choose from, he can order dessert in Denmark, count change in Cantonese, practice rhetoric Romania, and no one would suspect that it’s not his native tongue. Come to think of it, I’m not sure he even has a tongue; I don’t think he’s ever showed it in the pictures.
Gemma Halliday
Doing anything other than sitting or standing still in high heels isn’t easy. Trust me, I’ve tried, and let just say I had quite the exorbitant hospital bill after that. Clearly, this is not the case for Maddie Springer, star of Gemma Halliday’s High Heels Mysteries series. Not only can the fashion-designer-turned-sleuth walk in high heels, but she can run in high heels and chase down bad guys in high heels. I’d be willing to bet she could even toss a pizza crust in the air, in high heels. She’s just that good. If high heels aren’t your thing, don’t skip out on the other titles from this National Reader’s Choice award winner; Halliday’s books are snappy, suspenseful and sure to have you dying of laughter.
No, we didn’t partake in National Chocolate-Covered Peanuts Day, or National Cook a Sweet Potato Day. Instead, we’re celebrating National Look at all these Publishers who joined team OverDrive this month Week. You should probably join in on the festivities.
Sylvia Day
Premier Digital Publishing
Mundo Hablado
World Technologies
Pronunciator LLC
Presse de l’Universite du Quebec
Screen Media Ventures
Beaver’s Pond Press
Amy Kaufman is a Publisher Partner Services Specialist for OverDrive.
We’re excited to be in Philadelphia this week for the PLA conference, at which we will be showcasing some of the exciting features we have been developing over the past several months. OverDrive recently announced the WIN Catalog, an integrated suite of new features designed to connect readers with books and authors. We aren’t just ready to talk about the WIN Catalog, we’re ready for you to see it in person.
The WIN Catalog isn’t the only service enhancement we’ll have on display at booth #818. We’re also excited to showcase live programs like Smart Lists and Test Drive and to see a demo of the future of browser-based reading.
From the press release:
The OverDrive catalog features more than 700,000 popular eBook and audiobook titles—including J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series—and is growing at a rate of 30,000 titles per month. OverDrive’s new WIN Catalog and Test Drive™ program complement unique, popular features such as Kindle® compatibility (U.S. only) and the OverDrive Advantage plan, which gives libraries participating in shared collections the ability to offer popular titles exclusively for their patrons. Also at PLA, OverDrive will discuss how their recent acquisition of Australian eBook company Booki.sh will enable browser-based reading on all OverDrive platforms, and how the forthcoming OverDrive APIs will allow partner libraries to seamlessly integrate digital titles into existing online catalogs.
You can read more about OverDrive’s presence at PLA at the OverDrive news page. Please be sure to stop by booth #818 to engage with current and upcoming service enhancements from OverDrive, the leading global distributor of eBooks and audiobooks for libraries and schools.
Jeff Morgan is a Marketing Communications Specialist at OverDrive
OverDrive is excited to announce the pilot launch of the WIN Catalog for the library channel, an integrated suite of new features designed to connect readers with books and authors. Designed with input from libraries and publishers, the WIN Catalog creates a win-win-win scenario for publishers, libraries and readers. Announced in 2011, we’re proud to say we’ve delivered the following features to provide unprecedented opportunities for publishers to maximize discovery of titles and build long-term relationships with readers.
‘Buy It Now’
More than 50 percent of library users go on to purchase books by an author they first discovered in the library. The library’s new ‘Buy It Now’ feature makes those purchases easy, allowing users to discover titles from their library’s digital collection and instantly link to online booksellers offering the title for sale. A portion of each sale is credited back to the referring library as an affiliate fee in the form of OverDrive content credit. The Buy It Now feature gives readers instant access to new content while supporting collection development at their local library. Participating booksellers in the US include Indiebound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BooksonBoard.com and Powell’s.
More than 75 US libraries currently offer this feature. It’s also in pilot at Hampshire County Council in the UK with plans for expansion to additional retailers and markets in the coming weeks.
To Participate: All OverDrive publisher partners with digital lending rights are automatically enrolled in the Buy It Now program. Patrons can purchase titles provided the title is available from one of the affiliated retail partners.
Discovery of mid- and backlist titles with option to ‘Recommend to Library’
We want to encourage readers to discover authors and books beyond their local library’s selection and, in turn, encourage libraries to expand the breadth of their digital collections. With OverDrive’s WIN catalog, users can select ‘Additional Titles’ to view full publisher catalogs from those participating in library lending, including midlist and backlist titles their local library may not have purchased. Users can then choose to sample an excerpt, ’Buy It Now’ or ‘Recommend to Library.’ Libraries are able to view a list of recommended titles and set up purchasing plans based on recommended titles.
To Participate: Titles from OverDrive publisher partners that permit sales to the library channel are automatically included in the ‘Additional Titles’ and ‘Recommend to Library’ features.
Book & Author Impressions
In addition to enabling discovery of hundreds of thousands of eBook and digital audiobook titles, the WIN Catalog will offer new opportunities for book and author impressions. As mentioned above, more than 50 percent of library users go on to purchase books by an author they first discovered in the library. That highly qualified audience will now be able to directly connect with books and authors through event pages, book trailers, author fan pages, Facebook pages and more.
To Participate: Book & Author Impressions are in closed pilot at this time. We will have more information and participation guidelines in the near future.
The WIN catalog is already live with select pilot library partners, including Cuyahoga County Public Library (OH), Rochester Public Library (MN), New York Public Library, Boston Public Library, Poudre River Public Library (CO) and Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. Additional libraries are expected to follow, shortly. In the meantime, readers at our pilot libraries will have the ability to connect with authors and books from OverDrive publisher partners like never before.
eBooks continued to make a big splash last year in both the library and retail channels. Consumers are purchasing more than ever, and new research shows that many of those consumers are heading to booksellers following a visit to their local libraries. Undeniably, libraries have proven to be an invaluable source of discovery for books and authors.
According to Library Journal, regular public library users don’t just borrow books. “They are also active book buyers who make many of their purchasing decisions based on the authors or books they first discover in the library. In fact, over 50 percent of all library users go on to purchase books by an author they were introduced to in the library.” Indeed, the Digital Book Census states that more people are paying for eBooks. “Nearly two thirds (62.9%) of people say they have paid for an eBook, compared to less than half (46.9%) a year ago.” Now, OverDrive is making it even easier for library website visitors to purchase eBooks with the WIN Affiliates program, which allows for one-click access to national and independent booksellers directly from the library site.
Publishers are also making more sales to the library channel, as well. According to Library Journal’s study “Patron Profiles” (referred to on the The Digital Shift), libraries are meeting the increased demand for eBooks by creating more robust collections. “Public libraries increased their offerings by 185 percent. In turn, they also have dedicated more of their budgets to eBooks.” As Ruth Liebmann, Random House VP, said recently regarding the library channel: “A sale is a sale.” She even noted that libraries are a revenue stream that publishers like Random want to “protect, even grow.”
In addition to the direct sales that result from library websites, titles and authors are also receiving massive discovery via millions of impressions. How? Many library website visitors simply use the site for research and discovery. Based on recent data, OverDrive estimates that 60 percent of end-users did not check out a digital title, yet still visited 13 pages on average. In 2011, title impressions exceeded 1 billion, up from 700 million in 2010. And this will only grow with the launch of the ‘WIN Catalog’ (this week in pilot at a few select libraries) in which entire backlists will be searchable on library websites (with option to buy now through the WIN Affiliates Program). Check back for updates.
If you are already selling eBooks via retail channels, that’s a great first step. When considering other channels and promotional opportunities, include public libraries in your plans. For more information, contact pubinfo@overdrive.com now to reserve your spot.
Mobile use is growing, and the updated OverDrive® Media Console™ v2.4 for Android™, BlackBerry® and Windows Phone has got new features your customers will love to use more of.
Now, users can find definitions while reading using the dictionary lookup feature or even more information from Wikipedia. OverDrive’s Mobile Apps are compatible with EPUB eBooks and MP3 audiobooks.
The system requirements are still the same. The free apps can be installed on phones and devices running…
- Android v1.5 (or newer)
- Touch screen BlackBerry OS v4.7 (or newer)
- Non-touch screen BlackBerry OS v4.5 (or newer)
- Windows Phone 7 (or newer)
Users with OverDrive Media Console already installed will get a notification that an update is available.
The updated app is also available from:
OMC v2.4 for iOS—iPhone®, iPad®, iPod touch®—is coming soon for iOS v4.0 (or newer).
Brianne Carlon is a public relations specialist for OverDrive.
