“’Value-generating collaborations’ are the defining keywords of our time” – John Ruhrmann, MD Bookwire.
Best-known for its digital distribution in central Europe and Ibero-America, Frankfurt-based Bookwire has taken a collaboration with Dortmund-based publisher solutions operation readbox to the next level, with an acquisition of all the readbox shares, that will mean Bookwire owns readbox from 1 November.
In May 2020 Bookwire opened its own digital hub for Bookwire OS at the readbox site in Dortmund. A joint innovation and development site will now be set up there, according to the press release, which adds that Bookwire and readbox will continue to look after their existing clientele from their respective headquarters.
Bookwire CEO Jens Klingelhöfer said:
This step is a win-win situation for everybody involved. The experts from readbox bring us at Bookwire vast amounts of know-how in the field of innovative technical solutions. In turn, readbox benefits from our decade’s worth of combining technology and personal customer care, so our expertise can benefit their customers too. However, the biggest winners are the publishers and shops in our respective client portfolios, because our combined expertise enables us to bring to market and establish even more powerful and innovative solutions in an even shorter time.
Bookwire Managing Director John Ruhrmann said that,
“value-generating collaborations” are the defining keywords of our time. The aim of our strategic alliance is therefore to be able to achieve a stronger position, and one that is better for our partners, in the ever-evolving world of digitization. The merger of our two companies is the solution that will enable us to keep offering our clients the best in the future, in terms of both technology and service. For that reason, I am looking forward to the collaboration with Ralf Biesemeier and the readbox team.
In turn Ralf Biesemeier, CEO of readbox, said:
Bookwire has grown dramatically in recent years, and is also an international market leader, especially in the field of eBook and audiobook distribution. readbox offers publishers technical solutions for optimizing processes along the entire value chain. During the talks it quickly became clear that both businesses complement each other perfectly and would benefit from a mutual exchange of know-how. We are looking forward to learning from each other and working together to develop even better and more innovative solutions.
Founded in 2009 to facilitate ebook and related digital content distribution in Germany, Bookwire has morphed into a leading international player with offices in Germany, UK, Spain, Mexico and Brazil, supporting 1,700 publishers across the ebook, audiobook and POD formats.
readbox publishing (all lower case) has been active for more than a decade and now sells more than 1 million books each month in trade and D2C sales every month. Since late 2016 has been serving the academic publishing market with its readbox unipress and its “innovative, high-performance publication solution”, the unipress publisher.
The full benefits of the merger will no doubt reveal themselves as this decade unfolds, but little question this move enhances still further Bookwire’s leading role in its chosen markets.
