Building a First-To-Market Distribution Platform for Ebooks

Developing a new model of selling ebooks

Create a digital distribution platform for ebooks with an innovative business model, where readers can download complete ebooks free of charge and pay as much as they want after reading.

Challenges

Openbooks wanted to be the first company to create an innovative product (first to market).
A pay-it-forward architecture to design.
An engine for ebook conversion to develop.

Solutions

We worked closely with Openbooks.com and stakeholders. Creating an efficient workflow ready for fast iterations and being able to test the initial product thesis was key.

Establishing a flow with frequent deployments.
Working in close collaboration with the client's internal team.
The Algolia search engine (as well as other third-party tools) was introduced to speed up development.

Key benefits

Openbooks.com is the first ebook store based on the economy of trust. Unlimited copying and sharing of ebook files among users is not only allowed but highly encouraged.

The platform was launched in March 2015.
Openbooks.com was featured at London Book Fair in April 2015.
The first ebook store where people can easily share their ebooks simply by sending copies to friends.

Numbers

84916 eBooks downloads
$2.63 Average payment
0 DRMs introduced
8 Netguru team members

You just choose the title, download the file with full ebook and then you can share it with as many people as you like. Copy the file or send as an attachment in email - just like that. We also implemented extremely user-friendly models: “read before you pay” and “pay what you want”. As a result of OpenBooks.com, I believe that books no longer have to be judged by their covers alone and that no person is excluded from reading and enjoying books simply because of financial limitations.

Michał Kiciński
Co-founder of Openbooks