Bookish.com is a content discovery and ecommerce website, which launched in February 2013, devoted to books. The site allows users to browse an extensive database of books and authors, add books to user-created digital "shelves", get custom book recommendations, read editorial content and purchase physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks.[1]
Bookish was founded in 2011 in a joint venture backed by three of the big sixpublishing companies – Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA), and Simon & Schuster[2] – with the goal of increasing the presence of book publishers in the book-buying industry (which was becoming increasingly dominated by Amazon.com due to the increased popularity of online bookstores), as well as to expand the overall book-buying market.
The site was expected to launch in the summer of 2011, but the launch was delayed due to technical issues relating to data compilation,[3] as well as a lawsuit filed by the United States Department of Justice in 2012 against Apple Inc. and five major publishing companies regarding the pricing of ebooks.[4] The site officially launched in February 2013 with the support of sixteen additional publishing companies.[5]
In early 2014, online ebook retailerZola Books, attracted by the site's sophisticated “algorithmic software” that offers reading suggestions, acquired Bookish.[7]
