Publishing mergers and acquisitions - Zola Acquires Bookish; Macmillan Acquires Cookstr

Publishers Lunch

After a number of months of quiet shopping, Bookish.com has been acquired by Zola Books, in a cash deal for a sum that is not being disclosed. Zola founder Joe Regal says, "we still had to pay what for us is an awful lot of cash, bearing in mind we are still a startup" (which has itself raised $5.1 million so far). Approximately half of the Bookish staff (9 to 12 people) will be retained by Zola, though that integration has not been finalized, and Bookish ceo Ardy Khazaei "will not be joining the integrated team" though Zola "hopes he'll consult."

Backed by at least $10 million to $20 million in funding from its three partners -- Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group -- Bookish took years, and went through three ceos, before launching in February 2013, along the way figuring in the ebook pricing investigations as "Project Muse." While unremarkable to most outside observers, Bookish is attracting 300,000 to 400,000 unique visitors a month according to Zola -- exponentially more than Zola's own site, which is currently "focused more on reading apps and building app engagement." Regal notes that Bookish has "invested a lot of money" in their recommendation technology, and "it is very expensive to build that tech, no matter what."

In other M&A news, Macmillan has acquired six-year-old recipe web site Cookstr for an undisclosed sum, in a deal advised by Headwaters MB. Co-founder Will Schwalbe will stay with the site as its leader and takes on the additional role of evp, editorial development and content innovation for Macmillan, acquiring books across the company's publishing imprints. He will report to global trade coo Andrew Weber. (Cookstr's director of editorial and partnerships Kara Rota continues to report to Schwalbe.) For more on both acquisitions, visit PublishersMarketplace.com.

WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson's self-publishing brand that is powered by Author Solutions, will expand to include Zondervan (as both are now part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing.) Director of publisher services and manager of WestBow Press for Harper Pete Nikolai said in the announcement: "By expanding WestBow Press to support Zondervan in addition to Thomas Nelson, we are able to provide the WestBow authors with even more opportunities to be acquired by traditional publishers. We regularly suggest top WestBow Press titles to the acquisition teams at Thomas Nelson and will now do the same for the teams at Zondervan."