SIMON & SCHUSTER EBOOK BACKLIST NOW AVAILABLE

THROUGH SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

OYSTER AND SCRIBD

NEW YORK, May 21—Simon & Schuster, Inc., a global publishing leader, announced today that its backlist eBook titles are now being made available to consumers via the subscription services Oyster and Scribd. Both services offer flat-rate plans that allow consumers to read an unlimited number of eBooks, and today’s announcement marks the first time that Simon & Schuster has offered its eBooks to consumers via this form of subscription service.

Simon & Schuster’s participation with the two services is global and will include backlist eBooks from Simon & Schuster companies worldwide, with eBooks made available to consumers in all countries where Simon & Schuster holds eBook rights, and where Oyster and Scribd offer their subscription services to consumers.

“Consumers have clearly taken to subscription models for other media, and we expect that our participation in these services will encourage discovery of our books, grow the audience and expand our retail reach for our authors, and create new revenue streams under an author-friendly, advantageous business model for both author and 2 publisher,” said Carolyn Reidy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Simon & Schuster. “We are delighted to work with Scribd and Oyster to offer this exciting new model for readers to find and read eBooks, and to do so in a manner that respects the value of our authors’ creative endeavors and supports our mutual goals of selling the most possible copies of their books.”

As part of the program, Simon & Schuster authors will also have access to information on subscribers’ reading and purchasing activity for their titles.

“Our goal at Scribd is to become every reader’s personal digital library with our innovative subscription model” said Trip Adler, co-founder and CEO of Scribd. “We are excited to offer this impressive list of Simon & Schuster’s titles to our audience of 80 million readers around the world on Apple, Android and Kindle Fire devices, as well as the web. This Simon & Schuster partnership is a significant opportunity for its publishers and authors to monetize, and for our readers to discover even more books to love.”

“We are thrilled about this landmark partnership with Simon & Schuster which will bring to our subscribers some of the most iconic titles and authors in the world,” said Eric Stromberg, CEO of Oyster. “We fundamentally believe the access model will inspire new audiences to discover and read great books, both today and in the future, and this partnership is a huge leap forward toward our goal of making Oyster the 3 best place in the world to read books. We are incredibly pleased Simon & Schuster is taking this step with us.”

 

Media Contacts:

Adam Rothberg, Simon & Schuster adam.rothberg@simonandschuster.com, 212-698-1132

Mary-Kate Mele, Derris & Company (for Oyster) Mary-kate@derris.com, 646-362-4693

Lyndsey Besser, Scribd Lyndsey@scribd.com, 650-995-4563

 

About Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster, a part of CBS Corporation, is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and audio formats. Its divisions include Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Digital, and international companies in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com About Oyster Oyster is the world’s leading subscription service for ebooks. For one low monthly price, members can read more than 500,000 titles on iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Titles include New York Times bestsellers, award winners, and new releases from more than 1,600 distinguished publishers. Launched in 2013, Oyster is headquartered in New York City. About Scribd Scribd is a subscription reading service with more than 400,000 premier titles including New York Times bestsellers, classics, and reader favorites in every genre. Available in more than 100 countries and 80 languages via iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and the web, Scribd also features millions of written works contributed by users around the world. Launched in 2007 by Trip Adler and Jared Friedman and backed by Y Combinator, Charles River Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures, Scribd is one of the most influential websites in the world, reaching more than 80 million active readers every month. For more information, please visit our website at www.scribd.com.

05/21/14

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