75,000 eBooks now available through social reading platform, ReadCloud

New media, in the hand of entrepreneurial tech-savvy individuals, is finding its way into every avenue of life and reading is no exception.

ReadCloud was founded in 2009 by Jeremy LeBard and is “the world's first social eReading software.” It recently signed with publisher, Macmillan, lifting its tally of eBooks to 75,000. It offers three products globally:

  • Social eReading software for schools and book clubs which allows for sharing of annotations directly inside eBooks as well as easy distribution of eBooks to school laptops and tablets
  • A white-label eBooks platform with tablet applications allowing physical bookstores to hacve their own digital bookstore selling eBooks from major international and Australian publishers.
  • Course material encryption and distribution for corporate training and university course notes.
The social platform syncs all connected ReadCloud apps (PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android) such as within an educational institution, to the cloud – internet data storage - allowing distribution of relevant eBooks, as well as access to shared annotations, discussion and collaboration.

Pages and Pages white lable digital bookstore
ReadCloud offers 75,000 eBooks for sale from a range of Australian and international publishers including Macmillan,  Random House, Hachette, Harper Collins, Penguin, Allen & Unwin, John Wiley & Sons, Text Publishing, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, Scribe Publications, Walker Books, Murdoch Books, Hardie Grant, Health Press, UQP, SPUNC and Black Inc.

How does ReadCloud work?

Anyone can sign up for ReadCloud on their website, and this allows the purchase of eBooks from more than 200 stores that have signed up to the ReadCloud white-label platform, and of course the reading of these eBooks through an App that can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, Android, iPad and iPhone.

For educational institutions, which the “cloud” part of the platform pertains to, ReadCloud can be utilised at a yearly license fee per student, depending on the size of the cloud storage requirements.

Bite The Book writes that ReadCloud is fantastic news for Australian book retailers as before its emergence there had been few Aussie eBook initiatives.

ReadCloud isa positive development in that it facilitates Australian booksellers online dealings, while at the same time offering the innovative social and collaborative reading functions for educational purposes.

Founder Jeremy LeBard was highlighted in 2008 as a Digital Young Gun by B&T’s Digital Magazine which described him as one of the ‘rising stars of the new digital economy’. He previously co-founded the online book community www.Booktagger.com.

Watch for more info:

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