VNU Launches The Book Standard

Posted on February 11, 2005

VNU Business Media, has launched The Book Standard, a subscription-based website covering the book business. VNU says book coverage on Book Standard will include publishing, bookselling, marketing, promotion, production, distribution, libraries, film adaptations and the field's business and consumer communities. The site will also offers sales data from BookScan, retail and industry analysis and news features. The website will also include book reviews from Kirkus Reviews. Full access to the website and database will cost $9.95 per month.

The Book Standard is the first all-digital launch from VNU Business Media, the trade magazine division of VNU Inc., which publishes business-to-business magazine and website brands including Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, The Bookseller, Kirkus Reviews, Editor & Publisher, Adweek, Brandweek and Convenience Store News.

"It's what the book world needs right now," said Jerome Kramer, VNU U.S. Literary Group Managing Director and Editor in Chief, who has overseen the development of The Book Standard. "A dynamic, web-based, web-paced solutions center for the whole range of book and book-allied industries."

The Book Standard's book sales data is the result of cooperation between VNU Business Media and VNU's Nielsen BookScan. BookScan is a retail sales monitoring service for books with purchase information representing sales from more than 6,000 locations across the country. The Book Standard charts are modeled on the charts from Billboard and The Bookseller. The new site will provide about 150 weekly bestseller charts powered by data from BookScan.