Inside Digital Content Provider Partnerships: Q&A with Rosemary Carlough, Vice President of Marketing, AMACOM Books

EXTRA: What tips or advice can you give publishers when searching for digital vendors to partner with?

CARLOUGH: I think one of the key things publishers need to do is understand what market the digital vendor is targeting. The reason working with Books24x7 has been such a win-win for AMACOM, is that they are selling to a market that is the same as our traditional business market. As we have expanded into other areas in order to grow our trade business, some of the areas we have gone into, such as parenting and personal finance, they are now offering as well. Their software platform is very easy to use and navigate around in, so it provides good value to the companies who license it, and they have a reputation for good service. As a supplier of content, we have found them very easy to work with, which is a real plus for a small publisher like AMACOM.

EXTRA: Do many of your titles earn past their prime with a service like Books24x7?

CARLOUGH: That’s a good question, and I’ve never done a historical analysis by title and published date. I do know that titles in certain subject areas, particularly project management, have very long legs in Books24x7, as do our AMA self-study products, which do very well and cover many basic management subjects. On one hand, some of our most popular books in trade are also popular in Books24x7, but there are other titles that are slow sellers in our traditional channels but get lots of traction in Books24x7. Books24x7 allows customers to search for and use this content easily long after it may have disappeared from the shelves of a local bookstore, because the content never expires there.

EXTRA: How is a price determined for a publisher to partner with a company like Books24X7?