Image: From NetGalley.fr
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Kristina Radke, Maria Bodmer Oversee NetGalley.fr
In an announcement made today (August 30), the US-based NetGalley.com has announced that it has taken sole ownership of NetGalley France, a company it owned in equal partnership with French ebook retailer Feedbooks.
This news closely follows the news from Wednesday (August 28) that Québec City ebook distributor De Marque acquired Feedbooks, which carries some 900,000 titles.
The American NetGalley, a company based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, is led by Firebrand Technologies CEO Fran Toolan as part of Firebrand’s portfolio of companies.
In June, Feedbooks was placed in receivership, and as De Marque was making its purchase of the assets of Feedbooks, Toolan tells Publishing Perspectives that NetGalley.com was able to buy Feedbooks’ shares of NetGalley France from the French Commercial Court.
NetGalley was launched in 2008 by Rosetta Solutions and Toolan’s Firebrand Technologies, the latter of which took over late in the same year. By 2016, NetGalley’s then-president Susan Ruszala told Publishing Perspectives that the company’s member community had grown to some 310,000 people, including booksellers, reviewers, critics, and educators, and she talked about international expansion of the service to include the UK, Germany, and France.
Today, the company reports having the participation of publishers in the States, Canada, Australia, and Japan, and the overall strategy has been evolved as a vehicle for marketing
The French component was reported by Ruszala to have been launched in April 2015.
As a statement from the Stateside NetGalley.com says, “NetGalley LLC had a joint venture with Feedbooks, the French ebook retailer, to run the NetGalley platform for the French market.
“As previously reported , Canada’s Québec-based digital content distributor De Marque bought the assets of Feedbooks, and at the same time, NetGalley LLC purchased Feedbooks’ shares of NetGalley France directly from the French Commercial Court to become the sole owner of NetGalley France.”
In its media messaging, NetGalley,com refers to its vice-president for business growth and engagement Kristina Radke, saying that Radke will add to her responsibilities the direct management of NetGalley France. She’s to be assisted by Maria Bodmer, who replaces Astrid Pourbaix as community manager and chargée des relations éditeurs in Paris.
Bodmer, according to Newburyport, will “support client relationships and daily management of the platform in France.
“Publishers and members using NetGalley France will experience no changes in the service or platform as part of this transition,” per the NetGalley.com statement.
“It has been an eventful summer for NetGalley France,” Toolan says. “We are grateful to our French clients for their ongoing support of the NetGalley service, and we’re very excited about the prospects for growth in the French publishing market.”
According to the new statement. NetGalley.com delivers digital galleys to approved recipients on behalf of more than 300 publishers in North America, Australia, France, Germany, and the UK.
The French site lists international URLs for NetGalley Germany, NetGalley Japan, and NetGalley UK.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the French market is here, more from us on NetGalley is here, more on mergers an acquisitions is here, and more on digital publishing is here.