Bookface Closes

Bookface has ceased operations six months after its site launch, citing the key reason as its inability to gain the further investment required to "continue as an ongoing concern."

The Bookface business model centered around offering free access to a range of 2000+ books, which was accompanied by advertising and involved reading from within a Web browser -- each time the reader changed pages a new banner ad would load. Bookface paid royalties to publishers through its advertising and sale of the paper version of the book.

According to Bookface CEO and cofounder Tammy Deuster, "the Bookface model proved to be an effective way of connecting authors with their fans and of maximizing the power of the Internet for publicity and profit."

At the time of its site release last June, Bookface announced that Time Warner Trade Publishing (a division of the Time Warner) had taken a stake in the company, and had secure content from several leading publishers that included Penguin Putnam and HarperCollins.

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