Available in English Key people Ardy Khazaei
(CEO) | Founded 2011 (2011) Website Bookish.com | |
Type of site Content Discovery,
eCommerce Headquarters New York City, United States | ||
Bookish.com is a content discovery and ecommerce website devoted to books which launched in February 2013. The site allows users to browse an extensive database of books and authors, add books to user-created digital "shelves", get custom book recommendations, read editorial content and purchase physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks.
Contents
History
Bookish was founded in 2011 in a joint venture backed by three of the "big six" publishing companies - Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA), and Simon & Schuster - with the goal of increasing the presence of book publishers in the book-buying industry (which was becoming increasingly dominated by Amazon.com due to the increased popularity of online bookstores), as well as to expand the overall book-buying market. The site was expected to launch in the summer of 2011, but the launch was delayed due to technical issues relating to data compilation, as well as a lawsuit filed by the United States Department of Justice in 2012 against Apple Inc. and five major publishing companies regarding the pricing of ebooks. The site officially launched in February 2013 with the support of sixteen additional publishing companies.
In early 2014, online ebook retailer Zola Books, attracted by the site's sophisticated “algorithmic software” that offers reading suggestions, acquired Bookish.