By Sonya Rabbitte, 5 September 2001 15:22
NEWS Four of the world's biggest book publishers have inked a deal with Yahoo! to sell e-books direct to their customers over the internet. Publishing giants Harper Collins, Penguin, Random House and Simon&Schuster have opted to bypass other online retailers in favour of selling electronic format books directly to customers through a link on the Yahoo! site. Yahoo! will make money from commission on books sold and on fees for promoting authors and titles. Yahoo! claims its current alliance with Barnesandnoble.com is not threatened as that deal does not cover the sale of electronic books. Although sales of e-books have so far been disappointing the deal is the latest in a line of alliances that are gradually positioning Yahoo! as a distributor of various digital media. In June the company acquired US music video site Launch Media, and earlier this year it signed a deal with Sony Music and Vivendi to deliver a Napster-style music service.
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