S&S and PRH Ink Deals with K-12 Digital Reading Platform

Digital reading platform Curriculet announced last week partnerships with Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House, making thousands more titles available to the over 500,000 K-12 teachers and students that use the platform. The deals ups Curriculet's library to over 30,000 ebooks.

Students can access an ebook for a period of 60 or 90 days on Curriculet and schools only pay for that title once 10% or more of it is read. The platform also emphasizes Common Core learning by supporting interactive checkpoints within ebooks, which test reading comprehension.

"Digital reading in the K-12 environment is the next frontier in publishing for the educational marketplace," said Michelle Leo, vice president and director of education and library marketing at Simon & Schuster. "Offering students a classroom library of classic and relevant books is key to developing reading skills and habits, and we're delighted to try this new platform to help schools achieve that goal."

The partnership is also emblematic of a greater shift among book publishers to develop new digital platforms on which to expose their products to a wider audience. At next week's Book Business Live: Executive Summit on Digital Publishing, speakers from leading publishers will share how their company is exploring opportunities offered by new digital platforms. "Transforming Your Company for the New Era of Book Publishing" will examine how publishers have reoriented their organizations to more efficiently create and distribute digital content. Executives from Pearson, Hachette, and McGraw-Hill Education will share their experiences with incorporating new technology, workflows, and talent in into their organizations. Panelists include Phil Madans, executive director of digital publishing technology at Hachette, Clancy Marshall, vice president of Core Platforms at Pearson, and Zach Posner, senior vice president of McGraw-Hill Education's School Group.

You can learn more about the free, invite-only event here. Seats are limited, so request your invitation today by emailing Book Business publisher Matt Steinmetz.