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Smashwords Adds Gardner Hive; Xinxii Now Distributes Audiobooks

4795917129_649ff18eba_bHere’s a few pieces of ebook distributor news for your Friday reading.

Smashwords announced yesterday that they were now distributing to Gardners:

On October 22 Smashwords will begin delivering 230,000 ebooks sourced from the over 100,000 indie authors and small independent presses to 400 ebook stores powered by Gardners operating in 32 countries and serving customers in 138 countries; 2,000 public libraries in the U.K.; and 400 academic libraries in the UK, Europe and Middle East.  The agreement excludes Smashwords erotica titles.

Gardners has a whitelabel ebookstore platform with a diverse set of partners. An author might find their ebooks on "hive.co.uk, books.telegraph.co.ukindieebook.co.uk in the UK, bokus.com in Sweden,  takealot.com in South Africa and saxo.com in Denmark". Gardners Hive, as you may recall, used to be tied to Google Bookstore. It now independently supports hundreds of brick and mortar retailers.

In related news, Germany’s Xinxii has announced that they now distribute audiobooks. They can’t help authors produce audiobooks like ACX, but they can accept an mp3 file supplied by an author or publisher and distribute  it to Tolino and other retailers in Germany and Austria (SelfPublisherBibel.de).

And finally, the Smashwords/Gardners deal also includes two of Gardners sister companies that distribute to public and academic libraries in the UK.

Askews & Holts (A&H) is a sister company to Gardners, and operates the UK’s largest library ebook service.  A&H currently powers the ebook checkout systems of 81 public library authorities in the U.K. comprised of 2,000+ public libraries.  This represents over half of the UK library authorities, serving a local population of 17 million people.

Smashwords titles will also be accessible on the VLeBooks service, the ebook platform for Browns Books for Students, another sister company of Gardners that serves academic libraries.

VLeBooks is used by 400 schools & colleges in Europe, the Middle East & Asia and 78 universities in the UK, with over 200,000 students registered on the platform. More than 16,000 academic librarians and teachers utilize the platform for their digital and physical book orders.  The terms of sale for VLeBooks are the same as for Askews & Holts.

After OverDrive, Gardners is the second library ebook distributor to join Smashwords' netowrk.

image by brewbooks

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Comments


Mark Williams – The International Indie Author October 18, 2015 um 7:35 am

You omitted to add Gardners are reusing to take Smashwords erotica titles, just like OverDrive and Flipkart. None of these stores object to erotica from other aggregators.

Erotica is a big growth area for self-publishers, but once again Smashwords erotica authors are missing out.

Nate Hoffelder October 18, 2015 um 8:39 am

Whoops. You’re right; I missed it.

And once again, Smshwords has the self-pub stink.


kasthuri pethaperumal October 24, 2015 um 1:01 pm

This is great news.


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