Suppliers launch two services ahead of proposed joint platform

E-book-selling options are coming to Christian stores this month—a year after the need for a digital sales platform for brick-and-mortar retailers was identified as a top priority for the industry.

Due to launch in mid-July, digital marketing services company Innovative is to make e-book downloads available for Christian stores via a partnership with audiobook supplier eChristian, recently rebranded from Christianaudio.

The e-book delivery system is to be added to Innovative’s Signature Websites currently used by around 300 stores, and will also be made available to retailers who do not use the Signature service, for a charge.

“Providing customers with a complete selection of Christian e-books and downloadable audiobooks is critical to the Christian products industry at this time,” said Larry Haege president of Innovative. “Now is the time we must come together to develop business models successfully embracing e-books and downloadable audiobooks for growth within our industry.”

Meanwhile, at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) in Atlanta, July 10-13, Integra Interactive is to unveil details of its e-books solution, which centers on stores introducing shoppers to the digital book world, selling e-readers and linking buyers to an online book club.

“Any introduction to the world of e-books without an e-reader is going to cause the person who enjoys e-books to go away from the CBA channel, not to it,” said Integra’s Chief Innovation Officer David Amster. “By virtue of the market forces, they will gravitate to the most popular readers, which are the Kindle and the Nook.”

Integra plans to be selling e-readers and e-books in-store from November, with online book club purchases starting from February 2012. The service can be run in association with Integra’s MyMedia Burn Bar system, currently in around 400 stores, or independently by stores that do not have the in-store burning system.

Both Innovative and Integra have won support for their programs from the leading 15-20 Christian publishers and anticipate having most of the 12,000-15,000 Christian e-books currently available, for purchase. 

The two businesses were part of the task force set up by CBA at last year’s ICRS to investigate how stores might secure a share of the growing digital book market, but have announced their independent efforts with no announcement yet forthcoming on the industry-wide effort.

CBA said that a task force announcement on whether the industry would support a cooperative e-book delivery system was due by the end of May, but one had not been made by press time.

The Innovative initiative follows the launch of eChristian.com, with the 
formerly audiobook-focused online retailer—with 250,000 registered users—looking to expand into e-books, music and video. The link with Innovative was an effort to help support Christian stores, which provide a valuable ministry, said eChristian Vice President Todd Hoyt.

“Christian stores have see the paradigm completely shift,” he said. “They saw what happened with music, and now their biggest category is going digital.” There needed to be an alternative to iTunes and Amazon for e-book sales, he added.

The eChristian move, in turn, follows last fall’s launch by Christian Book Distributors (CBD) of an e-book store through its Christianbook.com Web site. The Peabody, Mass.-based company also introduced a CBD Reader for computers, smartphones or Apple’s iPad.

Amster said that his company’s initiative will be focused not on “early adopter” e-book readers—most of whom already had preferred sources for buying digital titles and would be be unlikely to switch to a Christian store’s Web site catalog—but the large number of “swayable  adopters” and “curious onlookers” among existing brick-and-mortar customers.

The Integra plan includes an e-book introduction center  for stores where shoppers can learn about digital books and search for available titles and two branded e-readers for purchase—one Wireless-enabled—that will retail for $100-140. 

“Anyone who is willing to invest, bare-bones probably about $250, can be in the e-book-selling business,” said Amster. “There’s a one-time fee and there would be the need to take a computer and designate it as the one to use for e-book purchases.”

Through the Integra program—the name of which is to be unveiled at ICRS—its e-readers will be registered with the store where they are bought, with commission on all digital titles purchased there or through the online book club paid to the store.