(Press Release) SAN DIEGO and NEW YORK, November 17, 2010—Bloomsbury USA, a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., and RoyaltyShare, Inc., a leading provider of digital revenue management and reporting solutions, today announced that Bloomsbury has selected RoyaltyShare's Digital Advantage for eBooks as its solution for processing and managing eBook transactions and revenue information. Digital Advantage for eBooks gives book publishers a proven solution for addressing large, complex digital revenue data from dozens of eBook, downloadable audiobook, and print-on-demand retailers.
Digital Advantage for eBooks delivers substantial cost savings while increasing both the accuracy of digital revenue data and the transparency of the workflows involved in managing the digital revenue process. The platform currently supports the revenue data feeds from over 30 digital e-retailers and distributors worldwide, supporting both the agency model and retail model. They include Amazon (Kindle, Audible, Create Space and AmazonMP3), Apple (iBookStore, AppStore, and iTunes), Barnes & Noble, Sony, Overdrive, Kobo and others. The solution builds upon RoyaltyShare's years of experience in providing digital transaction solutions for record labels and music distributors for whom RoyaltyShare has processed billions of music download and streaming transactions.
"As sales for eBooks continue to expand, so do the issues around dealing with digital sales transactions," said Peter DeGiglio, Chief Operating Officer of Bloomsbury USA. "RoyaltyShare approached us at exactly the right time. The service offers us an immediate solution for automating cumbersome, manual processes and, most importantly, allows us timely access to information that is integral to our business."
"Bloomsbury is an iconic company in the book publishing world and we are thrilled to be providing services to the U.S. division," said Bob Kohn, CEO of RoyaltyShare. "Publishers such as Bloomsbury USA are clearly recognizing the need for new, specialized systems for managing their digital sales channel. We offer an elegant solution for streamlining workflow around digital sales files management, giving our clients that ability to move forward aggressively with their digital initiatives."
Digital Advantage for eBooks automates and tracks the import and normalization of revenue transaction data received from e-retailers, provides sophisticated tools for clearing transaction errors, aggregates the transactions into an output feed that can be customized for downstream royalty and ERP systems, and provides Web-based analytics to examine sales trends. The result is a highly scalable solution for book publishers now faced with processing and managing sales data from dozens, and potentially hundreds, of electronic retailers and distributors worldwide who offer eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, and print-on-demand services-whether under the agency or retail models, or emerging subscription and advertising-based services.
RoyaltyShare's Digital Advantage for eBooks platform was recently enhanced with the launch of Sales Feed Price Validation, a crucial tool that helps agency model publishers validate eBook sales pricing compliance. Offered as an optional module, this new price validation tool helps publishers identify and manage transactions in which the actual sale price reported by retail agents is not in accordance with the price set by the publisher, potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and preventing downstream reporting errors. Book publishers distributing eBooks under the retail model may also use the tool to validate that e-retailers are using the proper suggested retail selling price established by the publisher, an important mechanism for assuring proper payment from e-retailers.
RoyaltyShare's Digital Advantage platform has also been selected by the New York Times to help validate sales data for their forthcoming New York Times Best Seller lists for eBooks.
About Bloomsbury USA
Bloomsbury USA is a general interest publisher of adult and children's books. Established in 1998 as an American subsidiary of Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (British publisher of, among others, J.K. Rowling) they are the publisher of the bestselling books Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Rats, Schott's Original Miscellany, My Horizontal Life, and Kitchen Confidential; as well as works by award-winning writers Alan Hollinghurst, William Boyd, Melissa Fay Greene, Howard Jacobson and Shannon Hale.
About RoyaltyShare
RoyaltyShare, Inc. is the leading provider of global digital revenue management and reporting solutions for the music and book publishing industries. Utilizing an innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application delivery model, RoyaltyShare provides a suite of on-demand services dedicated to simplifying the increasingly complex digital sales channel. RoyaltyShare's technology is used by hundreds companies around the world. RoyaltyShare is based in San Diego with offices in New York and London. More information on the company can be found at http://www.royaltyshare.com.