Canada's Shelfie Partners with Germany's De Gruyter in Ebook Bundling

With more than 1,200 publishers on its list, Vancouver’s Shelfie adds Berlin’s De Gruyter, making ebook editions of its books available to individual owners of the print copies.

Image – iStockphoto: GPoint Studio

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

‘An Important Vertical for Shelfie’s Readers’

The newest addition to Vancouver-based Shelfie‘s growing roster of publisher-partners is German-based scientific book publisher De Gruyter.

The De Gruyter group—which earlier this summer became IPR License’s first large German publishing partner—is headquartered in Berlin, and has offices in Basel, Beijing, Boston and Munich. it publishes more than 1,300 new titles annually in the humanities, social sciences, STM and law.

Shelfie (formerly BitLit) is considered among the most doggedly successful of the publishing-sector startups, now partnering with more than 1,2o0 publishers. Shelfie currently boasts more than 450,000 titles and 24,000 audiobook titles available through the app.

This spring, Shelfie added recommendations to its services and announced a partnership with Harvard Book Store.

Shelfie’s De Gruyter partnership marks the first time that the publisher’s full catalog of titles will be available to their individual customers in ebook bundles.

The reason the app is called Shelfie is that it allows readers to digitize their print library by taking a photo of a bookshelf (a “shelfie”) and upload it to the system. Readers then can identify a list of books available free of charge or at a discount, and are able to download an ebook or audiobook simply by snapping a photo of their book’s copyright page marked with a bookplate or their handwritten name.

Ben Ashroft, De Gruyter’s vice president sales and marketing, is quoted in a prepared statement saying: “De Gruyter has a track record of creating and participating in innovative business models that offer increased value to readers of our content. By partnering with Shelfie we aim to further that mission.”

For Shelfie, Mary Alice Elcock, Shelfie’s vice president of content, says: “The addition of De Gruyter makes Shelfie the hub of scientific and technical ebook bundling. “This is an important vertical for Shelfie’s readers, and we are thrilled to be able to better serve their needs.”

Other major publishing partners of Shelfie include HarperCollins, Macmillan, Hachette, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and McGraw-Hill. Shelfie is available on all iOS and Android devices.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.