FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2 June 1995
Booth #1053, Chicago, Illinois
American Booksellers Association Conference
June 2-5, 1995
Online BookStore Introduces New Commercial Models for Publishing on the
Internet
Negroponte's bestselling "Being Digital" published online with OBS; and Time Warner launches their Quick Reads series online with OBS
For the third year in a row, OBS leads the publishing industry into "the online future," releasing at this year's ABA several significant new projects with major publishers. OBS shows, through its projects with Knopf, Time Warner, and Viking Penguin, all released for the first time at ABA, that the evangelizing stage of online
publishing is over, and the implementation stage has begun in earnest.
In 1993, OBS brought the first Internet connection to the ABA in our Miami "Internet Start-Up Booth". In 1994, OBS introduced "distributed publishing" to the ABA, featuring titles from Farrar Straus & Giroux, Wiley, McGraw-Hill, and Globe Pequot Press. Of their experience with OBS, McGraw-Hill's Royalynn O'Connor is
quoted in this week's PW: "The McGraw-Hill Professional Book Group reports unexpected success in sales of its title "Paperless Publishing" as a result of making the book available free through the Online BookStore, a Web site operated by electronic publishing pioneer Laura Fillmore." In 1995, OBS offers booksellers and
publishers profitable options for new business on the Internet.
Highlights of this year's OBS booth #1053 include:
- OBS "Cyberdock Option" --a creative and commercially hot cyberspace extension disk for books on any topic--a new way to successfully marry paper and online publishing
- OBS launches Time Warner's Quick Read program for sale on the Internet with fourteen downloadable hypertext titles, interlinked into Internet resources. The free sampler and Cyberdocking license, add bold new dimensions to publishing.
- Nicholas Negroponte's bestselling "Being Digital" begins evolving digitally in cyberspace with OBS, starting Saturday June 2. This release introduces a new sponsorship model for publishing, OBS's "Gumball Machine" billing model, opening up a new income stream for publishers and authors.
- Penguin attends ABA...virtually, with an effective online presence only through OBS. Their new fall title from their Plume imprint, Marcia Yudkin's "Marketing Online", effectively melts the boundaries between itself and its competition--other online marketing books--through effective linking and "schmoozing" online.
- OBS invites booksellers to join in the expansion of its pioneering worldwide BookFinder service.
- BBN, the company that built the Internet, together with OBS, the first full-text bookstore on the Internet, will jointly present a key Internet publishing seminar on Saturday, from 3-6, in EAST Building, Level II, Room E253B.
Attendees of the seminar may win a raffle for six months free time on a state-of-the-art BBN W3 publishing server (this includes free consulting from OBS and a T1 connection from BBN). The winner will receive a $15,000 value. The seminar offers up-to-the-minute publishing knowledge about the inside story of the
online creation of "Being Digital" at OBS. Cost: $150. Space is limited. Contact Booth #1053
To see the future of publishing in process today, come to Booth 1053.
Contact: Laura Fillmore or Karen Fuhrman on site at Booth 1053, or David Eales at 978-546-7346
Laura Fillmore President, Online BookStore
978-546-7346
http://www.obs-us.com
ABA Booth #1053