Word on the Street: Sanger firm hopes to ‘democratize’ e-book business

A Sanger-based book wholesaler hopes to make a digital splash later this year by opening up sales of e-books to thousands of would-be merchants.

“We want to democratize the sale of e-books,” said Stephen Blake Mettee, president and “chief visionary officer” of Hummingbird Digital Media. Currently, the $6 billion-a-year electronic book business in the U.S. is dominated by Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble, Mettee said, adding that those three companies collectively represent 95 percent of all e-book sales. “What we’ve developed is a program where anyone can get into the e-book and audiobook business.…We like to say we are unleashing the power of the many.”

Hummingbird is a subsidiary of American West Books, operated by Mettee’s son Josh Mettee. American West wholesales printed books to retail stores including Costco, Sam’s Club and Whole Foods.

Stephen Mettee said Hummingbird is an online platform that will offer independent booksellers, nonprofits, media companies or anyone else who wants to sell e-books an online “storefront” through which customers can browse an extensive catalog of titles and buy and download their selected titles from a wide range of publishers. Titles are downloaded to a reader app that can operate on Apple’s iPhone or iPad, Android-powered Samsung or Nook devices, or Amazon’s Kindle Fire devices. The app and the online storefront are customized with the brand identity of the merchant, while Hummingbird operates in the background.

There is no charge for a retailer, nonprofit or individual to become a merchant. Both Hummingbird and its member merchants make money by splitting the difference between the publisher’s digital list price and the discounted price for sellers – a formula that, depending on the publisher, typically nets 12 to 23 percent of the digital list price for the online merchant.

“We’re really aimed at 1,700 independent booksellers who have been shut out from selling e-books,” Mettee said. But the platform allows anyone with a hankering to sell books to do so. “We’re expecting to sign up at least 2,000 retailers within 12 months of opening.”

The Mettees hope to beta test their online platform and systems in the coming weeks and officially launch it for business in October.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Word on the Street: Sanger firm hopes to ‘democratize’ e-book business."