A new initiative by an American publishing house will see whether its wares can be sold directly through social media.
The Hachette Book Group, which is owned by the French company Hachette Livre, is planning to partner up with a firm that will allow it to sell books on Twitter, without users having to leave the platform itself.
As such, the followers of the publishing house’s authors and accounts, including famous names in the book world like Michael Connolly, James Paterson, and Malcolm Gladwell, will be able to purchase the latest novels by clicking on links in their news feeds.
This will help to shorten the process that customers would need to follow to obtain the latest releases, potentially making it a much more convenient retail experience. The Gumroad service has already been enacted for other products on the social platform, including music and charity donations, but this will reportedly be the first book publisher to work with the firm.
The news of the partnership follows on from the cited trouble that Hachette has had setting up a deal with online trader Amazon. The publishing house has therefore chosen to work with Gumroad to circumvent the issue.
The first round of direct-sale tweeters will be limited, although a spokesperson for Hachette has claimed that the selection will be widened eventually to include more authors and titles. Those who will initially have the option of selling books directly from news feeds will include the astronaut Chris Hadfield and the satirical website The Onion.
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