Book Publishers Sell Bookish Site

Three big book publishers that teamed up to start their own book- recommendation and retailing website are selling the venture, less than a year after it launched.

Zola Books Inc., a fledgling e-books retailer, is buying Bookish, a book site launched last February by CBS Corp.'s Simon & Schuster, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, and Penguin Group (USA), now part of Penguin Random House. The purchase price wasn't disclosed.

The sale shows the difficulty that entertainment companies have in competing in the retail space with companies like Amazon.com Inc. The publishers joined forces in 2011 to create Bookish, a site that was meant to provide consumers with a way to discover new authors at a time when book stores were declining.

The publishers initially expected to launch the site in the summer of 2011 but it didn't end up going live until February 2013, stymied by senior management changes and technology woes that included issues related to managing data from multiple sources. In addition to selling books directly to consumers, Bookish provides links to retailers including Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Inc.

Michael Pietsch, CEO of the Hachette Book Group, said Bookish is being sold "because we completed our mission of building a great recommendation and website. We never intended to own it long term." He declined to comment on whether financial concerns were a factor.

For the publishers, the sale of Bookish marks the end of a venture whose mission was never well defined, according to one observer. "It was always a vague marketing tool but whether it was going to turn into a Goodreads or an Amazon was unclear," said Lorraine Shanley, president of industry consultants Market Partners International Inc. "They never found their niche. They had good people working for them, but their mission never became clear."

The buyer, Zola, is itself a startup, co-founded by former literary agent Joe Regal and launched in 2012. It today offers about 200,000 digital titles, although it doesn't yet sell any books published by Penguin Random House. A spokesman for Penguin Random House declined to comment, other than to say that the two companies don't have an agreement at this time.

Mr. Regal said that Zola will operate Bookish as a separate website for the foreseeable future. "How we integrate is something we'll figure out over time," he said. Bookish employs 22 people; it is expected that roughly half will lose their jobs.

Mr. Pietsch said the sale will enable Bookish to continue as an independent site. Bookish attracts 300,000 to 400,000 visitors a month, he added.

The site's recommendation engine is built around specific book attributes as opposed to consumer purchases. For example, a reader who liked Gillian Flynn's best-selling thriller "Gone Girl" is offered four recommendations, including the late Elmore Leonard's novel "Rum Punch." But the site may need some further tinkering: one of the four recommendations for readers who liked "Gone Girl" is Michael Paterniti's "The Telling Room," a work of nonfiction.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at [e-mail]

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