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The Best Little Bookshop has made a key appointment ahead of its beta launch.
The brainchild of Kieron Smith, former m.d of The Book Depository, online bookseller Best Little Bookshop has appointed Martin Hearn [pictured] as chief technical officer and will launch in the next few weeks.
Hearn has a wealth of previous bookselling technology experience, having previously worked for Methvens Booksellers, samedaybooks.com and most recently as technical project manager for The Book Depository (now owned by Amazon), in addition to working at Guardian News & Media and Time Out.
In addition to being hired as chief technical officer, he has also been appointed to the board of Best Little Bookshop.
Smith, m.d of the company, said: “I’m very pleased to have Martin with us, I’m immensely proud of the product we’re building and Martin can help us make it even better. He combines an obsession with books with impressive and imaginative technology skills. He’s a welcome addition to the board.”
Hearn added that he was “delighted” to be joining the start-up company and was excited about “building an international and collaborative online bookseller.”
The website, bestlittlebookshop.com will sell a wide range of books from all publishers, but it will also contain profiles where other “partner” booksellers from around the world will be able to offer collections of specialist and hard-to-find, unusual books. It will launch in four languages simultaneously: German, English, French and Arabic.
Publishers will also be able to set up their own profiles to sell directly to consumers from the website, but it does not currently plan to sell e-books.