HarperCollins, Time Inc Partner With JetBlue, Will Provide Free In-Flight Content
European publishers have long been dabbling in offering free ebooks to passengers on trains and buses and now HarperCollins is getting into the mix. The publisher announced this morning that it would be participating in JetBlue’s Fly-Fi Hub service, which launched this morning.
Pitched as a free source of content for JetBlue passengers, the Fly-Fi Hub draws from a variety of media companies and publishers, including Time inc, National Geographic, and HarperCollins. Time will be supplying its monthly magazines while NG supplies shows, and HarperCollins will be providing excerpts of recently published books. All of the content will be free for passengers (or at least that is what the JetBlue press release suggests).
According to the HarperCollins press release, readers will be able to enjoy excerpts from more than twenty best-selling books published by HarperCollins, including Endgame: The Calling by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton, Flesh and Blood by Patricia Cornwell, Yes Please by Amy Poehler, and Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses by James Dean. The excerpts will include buy buttons to allow customers to purchase any of the available titles from a variety of retailers.
HarperCollins is by no means the first publisher to join this type of marketing program, nor is JetBlue the first airline. In the past year Turkish Airlines launched a free digital library app, Piper Verlag partnered with a German bus company to provide excerpts to riders, and French railway SNCF launched a digital library focused on short reads.
image by angeloangelo
Comments
puzzled November 25, 2014 um 1:19 am
Of course, with JetBlue’s new jets with the additional rows, you’ll have to read with your nose pressed up against the screen on the seat back.
Nate Hoffelder November 25, 2014 um 4:22 am
And with the double occupancy seating, you can now share someone else’s book.
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