You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
US-based book recommendation and retail site Bookish has been acquired by e-book start-up Zola Books.
Announcing the deal on its website, Zola – also based in the US - said it had been looking at building tools for book discovery for “many months now”.
The post said that while Bookish was “not perfect”, it did offer “terrific capabilities, and Zola is going to work hard to make it even richer in the months to come”.
The fee paid for the acquisition has not been disclosed, but Zola founder Joe Regal told Publishers Lunch: "We still had to pay what for us is an awful lot of cash, bearing in mind we are still a startup."
Bookish launched in February 2013 backed by Hachette, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in the US, and featuring content including book recommendations, extracts, articles by a dedicated editorial staff, and partnerships with the Onion and USA Today which are aimed at driving readers to the site.
Bookish was initially announced in May 2011, but was subject to numerous launch delays, as well as doubts from the industry, and a series of leadership changes. Paulo Lemgruber was the initial c.e.o. of the company, with Caroline Marks succeeding him after 18 months, in October 2011.
Ardy Khazaei then took over from Marks. Publishers Lunch said Khazaei would not be joining the new team at Zola, but the company "hopes he'll consult."