eBook seller and social network Zola Books has acquired the book recommendation site Bookish, in a deal whose terms were not disclosed. The deal comes less than a year after Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster founded Bookish.
The acquisition expands Zola’s technology tools, adding social sharing capabilities to the company’s own site and apps. Zola will continue to operate the Bookish website, and users can continue to read book recommendations on the site.
“Zola and Bookish share a vision of a richer reader experience, connecting readers to their favorite books, authors, tastemakers they trust, and of course to other readers,” stated Joe Regal, Zola Books CEO, in a press release. “Ebooks are becoming personal social networks. Not only can we can read them on phones and devices that we carry with us, but we can also share and comment right inside the reading apps themselves.”
According to Digital Book World, about half of Bookish’s employees will join the Zola team and work at the Zola offices. However, Bookish CEO Ardy Khazaei will not go to Zola.