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Scribd signs up Simon & Schuster, adds 5,000 books to its e-book site

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Screenshot of Scribd’s online store for Simon & Schuster books to open Friday. Credit: Scribd.

Scribd, the upstart San Francisco publisher of online content, today added stalwart New York book publisher Simon & Schuster to its roster of partners.

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The deal adds 5,000 titles to Scribd’s digital books catalog. In addition, it makes available thousands of other titles for online preview. If readers like what they see, Scribd will send them to Simon & Schuster’s website or other online bookstores where they can buy the paper version. Simon & Schuster, owned by CBS Corp., represents such best-selling authors as Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and David McCullough.

Digital books make up less than 3% of the overall book industry revenue, but the category is growing fast as readers gravitate to electronic reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s Reader and even Apple’s iPhone.

‘It’s a very high growth opportunity for us,’ said Ellie Hirschhorn, chief digital officer and executive vice president of Simon & Schuster. ‘It’s growing 300% year over year, but it’s still relatively low numbers. It’s a small base with rapid growth.’

-- Alex Pham

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