BookPal Occupies Unique Role as Bulk Seller of Print and Ebooks

BookPal is a bulk bookseller serving corporations, schools, nonprofits, and government institutions. The company has grown rapidly since its founding in 2005 and has landed on the Inc. 500/5000 list for the past three years. In part, BookPal's recent growth is due to its efforts in the ebook space; the bookseller launched a new ebook distribution platform and a mobile reading app for Android and iOS in July. Its focus on ebook distribution, says BookPal president Tony DiCostanzo, lends the bookseller a unique role in the industry, allowing it to streamline distribution for large publishers and independent authors alike.

How does BookPal work?
With a catalog of over 3 million titles, we offer tiered pricing, live customer service, and streamlined delivery options for physical books and ebooks. For each ebook copy ordered, customers receive a unique alphanumeric redemption code, allowing them to easily print, email, and administer the distribution of their ebook copies. Ebook recipients simply visit the website, enter the redemption code, and obtain their copy of the selected title.

How did you come up with this idea?
I re-launched BookPal in 2009, expanding upon a previously successful operation that sold books in bulk to niche markets within the healthcare sector. After the company's inception, I realized that the winning business formula could deliver on a much larger scale.

Mainstream booksellers were not attuned to the needs of corporate and educational book buyers, so BookPal developed a plan to simplify and streamline bulk ordering. BookPal thrives in this burgeoning market by catering to enterprise customers and solving their unique B2B needs. BookPal's ebook platform, in particular, provides an alternative for distribution by delivering ebooks to customers with ease and speed.

What important trends do you see in publishing today?
With publishers cutting down on the number of physical copies they print, distributors who deal with large-scale purchases are facing greater challenges. More authors are also choosing to self-publish their own ebooks, which creates problems for distributors who must navigate through thousands of authors.

BookPal has remained steadfast in its commitment to its core enterprise customers, simultaneously solving the problem of how authors and publishers distribute ebooks to a large audience while keeping in mind the need to protect digital rights.

Who is your competition?
We compete with mainstream giants, like Barnes & Noble and Amazon, and niche companies, such as christianbook.com and 800ceoread.com. BookPal separates itself form these competitors through our unique ebook customer experience. We provide a broad range of titles for every niche, fast single-delivery shipping, and discounted pricing.

What's next?
There's great potential for growth and expansion with BookPal's new ebook platform. As ebook usage continues to grow, BookPal is excited to work with more publishers and bring additional content to our enterprise customers, corporations, educational institutions, and non-profits.