In a few days it will be the Book Fair in Frankfurt And before this event, many companies are preparing effusively to make themselves known or to make people talk at one of the largest events at the European level and perhaps at the global level of the publishing market. There are companies like Overdrive that he has not waited and is beginning to draw his artillery. Today he announced the results obtained during the last year.
What is Overdrive?
Overdrive is a company that sells its services to Libraries and other public or social organizations. Its services are based on offering its clients a platform where they can rent and lend ebooks, among them, as if it were a library. Moreover, the main type of clients of Overdrive they are libraries, many of them seeking to expand their services in the digital world without having to pay for their own infrastructure.
Overdrive Results
Currently and according to data from Overdrive, has more than 27.000 partners or clients scattered in 36 countries throughout the world. Of these 27.000 clients (libraries and schools, mostly) 19.000 have achieved them in the last year and only 8.000 so far in 2013. To give you an idea, their main competitors, Axis 360, MyiLIbrary and 3M Cloud Library, together they add up to 8.000 a portfolio of 8.000 clients.
As for the catalog it offers, Overdrive It already has 1,8 million titles between ebooks and audiobooks, cataloged in more than 60 languages. An impressive catalog. Regarding editorial relations, it has currently added more than 100 publishers from 18 different countries and plans to continue increasing this number.
Of course, these data leave a very good taste in the mouth, especially after what is known in the United Kingdom. But the issues that seem to relate to this library service remain, Will Overdrive arrive in Spain? What will Overdrive's strategy be with Europe?
Very interesting questions, because although we do not know what rate you are paying to publishers, we do know that many of the publishers with which you are working Overdrive they are changing their business model and wanting to rent ebooks instead of selling them. Something curious. Although, as curious as it may seem, it is true that most of the publishers with which he works Overdrive they are very small and it can be very economical to work with Overdrive, but in Spain the situation is very different, the prices of ebooks and audiobooks are very high and they also have a lot of taxes, so I don't know how the Overdrive business will behave in Spain. On the other hand, libraries in Spain are national, so if an agreement is reached with Overdrive, publishers, bookstores and other businesses related to the book market What will they say or what will they do?
Also, in this business, Overdrive It's not the only one. We have already told you about Axis 360, MyiLibrary and 3M Cloud Library, but large bookstores such as Kobo, Amazon or B&N are studying this market and promoting themselves in it, as is already the case with Kobo who is offering these ebook rental services to New Zealand libraries, competing directly with Overdrive.
I personally believe that Overdrive and your competitors offer a great service, a very good one that should be further promulgated by old europe but that due to third party circumstances the thing is stopped. I have not tried the services of Overdrive, but they would not be bad, for the moment we must be content with companies such as 24 symbols that offers us the same but paying, a small amount but paying. What do you think about this service? Do you like it or do you think it won't work in Spain?
More information - Axis360 and axis Reader App, access to libraries begins, Kobo expands with Hutt City Libraries and enters the library world,
Source - Digitalbookworld