By Edward Nawotka, Editor-in-Chief
Last week Aerbooks picked up a huge amount of traffic from Neil Gaiman when he tweeted out to his 2 million followers that he books were now available directly from the HarperCollins website. As it happens, HarperCollins is using the Aerbook Flyer service “to broadly integrate HarperCollins books into the fabric of the mobile and social web — delivering a mobile and tablet-optimized extended reading experience on any website and within any social stream.” The service “includes a buy button that allows customers to directly purchase titles from www.hc.com or other e-book retailers,” said the press release; the buy button can be shared via Twitter Cards, Facebook posts, and Rich Pinterest Pins.
But that wasn’t the company only news: Aerbooks also launched (for early invitation) the Aer.io Retail Network, which “enables any person or company to create, customize, and curate a fully mobile/social storefront that can be dropped into any website with a line of code.” So, you, dear reader, can curate your own ebook store.
According to the press release, “Delivered in collaboration with initial partner and investor, Ingram Content Group, the service lets Aer.io store operators draw from a catalog of 2 million print books, DVDs and Blu-Rays, audiobook and music CDs, graphic novels, eBooks, and more, to curate an inventory that may be priced and sold profitably, with full access to opt-in customer relationships.”
I saw an early sample from Aerbooks’ Ron Martinez, and it looks pretty simple and pretty robust. You can, for example, import your Goodreads titles to make life a bit easier, rather than forcing you to upload individual titles one by one.
You can sign up for early access here.