News

Fast-Growing Publishing Industry E-Commerce Service, BookEasy, Adds Two Major Partners

TBS and HarperCollins UK Join

Somerset, NJ -September 3, 1998 -- BookEasy, the Internet self-service inquiry and ordering service for booksellers and the publishing industry, announced today the addition of two important strategic partners. Both TBS (The Book Service, Ltd.) and HarperCollins UK will join the Internet service.

TBS is the largest distributor of books in the United Kingdom, representing Random House UK, Little Brown and over 40 additional publishers. Bertelsmann now owns TBS, following its recent acquisition of Random House. In addition to these publishers, TBS-owned Grantham Book Services will also be represented on BookEasy. Grantham distributes on behalf of 71 UK publishers. With the addition of these new partners, 163 additional publishers will be represented on BookEasy, bringing the total number of publishers and imprints available through the service to over 500. HarperCollins UK is one of the world's largest and most prestigious broad-based publishers and is owned by The News Corporation.

"HarperCollins in the UK have made major strides into e-commerce and supply chain management, and joining BookEasy is seen as a key component of the company's Internet strategy," said Tom Armstrong, Business Systems and Services Director of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

"We are extremely pleased to welcome HarperCollins and TBS to BookEasy. Both these companies represent a large and varied cross-section of titles published and distributed in the UK and internationally. Their participation in BookEasy offers booksellers worldwide tremendous self-service advantages and allows them to participate in the globalization of bookselling when they log on to www.bookeasy.com," said Peter F. Clifton, BookEasy Chief Executive Officer.

BookEasy partners currently include Macmillan Distribution, Exel Logistics, Bookpoint, Marston Book Services, and Littlehampton Book Services in the UK; and Von Holtzbrinck Publishing Services (Henry Holt, Farrar Straus & Giroux, St. Martin's Press, and Tor, among others) and Broadman & Holman, trade publishing subsidiary of Lifeway Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention in the US.

Companies that join BookEasy benefit by offering booksellers Internet customer self-service for title, price and availability inquiries as well as ordering and order status inquiry capabilities. Conversely, booksellers around the world enjoy the ability to access participating suppliers real-time information, when they need it, regardless of time-zones, 24 hours a day/7 days a week.

BookEasy is the first open standard e-commerce Internet service designed specifically for the publishing community including; booksellers, publishers, distributors and wholesalers. BookEasy is located in Somerset, NJ and Northwood, England, and is a division of VISTA Computer Services, the worldwide leader in information systems for the publishing industry. BookEasy was created and developed by VISTA Computer Services together with J. Whitaker & Sons, Ltd., BookEasy's partner in the UK for central site bibliographic and TeleOrdering services.