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Simon & Schuster, Lightning Source Enter Major Digital Fulfillment Deal
Agreement to Dramatically Expand Depth and Reach of Digital Content Offerings
Simon & Schuster, Inc. and Lightning Source Inc. have announced a long-term strategic alliance whereby Lightning Source will become Simon & Schuster's preferred and primary digital fulfillment company, helping to dramatically expand both the number of titles available and the reach of its digital content offerings.Simon & Schuster, one of the world's largest trade publishers with over 12,000 active backlist titles and more than 2,000 titles published annually, has the largest collection of eBook titles of any major trade publisher. Under the arrangement, Lightning Source will enable Simon & Schuster's digital content to reach a vast group of retailers by providing end-to-end digital capabilities from file conversion to delivery and other fulfillment services for both eBook and print-on-demand orders. Conversion of Simon & Schuster's backlist titles to digital files will commence immediately.
"As early believers in the potential of eBooks and print-on-demand, we embrace every opportunity to carry the concept quickly into the mainstream, and are equally determined to include our longtime customers in the evolving electronic marketplace," said Simon & Schuster President and Chief Operating Officer Jack Romanos. "For Simon & Schuster and its authors, this alliance with Lightning Source is a key partnership that will enable us to enlarge the digital bookselling community, and reach consumers with greater ease. We are thrilled that Lightning Source will make it easy and efficient for our customers to participate in these exciting developments in publishing."
"Combining Simon & Schuster's content and innovation in the eBook arena with our technological know-how, makes this deal a win-win for all involved," said Lightning Source President and CEO Ed Marino. "It adds to our rapidly growing digital library - already one of the industry's largest. But most of all, it helps meet the growing consumer thirst for digital content."
Simon & Schuster is widely known as an industry leading e-publisher. Earlier this year, it brought worldwide attention to the phenomenon of e-publishing with the release of Stephen King's Riding the Bullet, an original, exclusively electronic publication that was downloaded more than 500,000 times. It recently released the entire backlist of best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark in electronic format, has participated in the launch of Microsoft Reader for the Pocket PC, and has generally taken an aggressive position in this nascent marriage of content and technology.
For Lightning, the addition of Simon & Schuster augments an already growing list of publishing partnerships that work hand in hand with established alliances with technology leaders like Adobe, Microsoft and Amazon.com. These agreements have helped build one of the most expansive digital libraries available in the industry today - with almost 10,000 titles on hand and a track record dating back to the use of digital technology to pioneer print-on-demand services.