Baker & Taylor to Offer Rich Digital Media Content From Quayside on Blio

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world's largest distributor of physical and digital books and entertainment products, is proud to announce it has entered into an agreement with Quayside Publishing Group to provide rich, highly-formatted content on Blio. Blio is the revolutionary e-reader software application created by K-NFB Reading Technology and powered by Baker & Taylor. Quayside is a specialty publisher whose imprints publish more than 300 new titles a year on wide-ranging topics – from transportation and sports to cooking and crafts and history and graphic design.

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"Baker & Taylor is pleased to include Quayside's specialty titles on Blio," said Tom Morgan, Chairman and CEO of Baker & Taylor. "Blio is simply the best e-reader application for showing off Quayside's books, which are chock full of highly specialized and informative text and graphics. Readers are in for a real treat – a totally immersive e-reading experience, too."

By leveraging strong relationships with the publishing community as well with its best-of-breed digital technology partners LibreDigital and K-NFB Reading Technology, Baker & Taylor is converting new content for Blio every day. With more than 41,000 customers in 120 countries, Baker & Taylor's global reach makes it the perfect partner to provide superior content management and distribution for the world's most innovative e-reader application. Baker & Taylor's affiliation with Blio is its latest step in bringing comprehensive digital media services to multiple channels and to a wide variety of customers, strengthening its position as the premier source for digital and physical media distribution.

"It is important to us that e-book editions of our frontlist and backlist titles maintain the same high-level quality of layout and design that our readers have come to expect – and that's exactly what Baker & Taylor and Blio deliver," said Ken Fund, CEO and President of Quayside.

Blio, featuring cutting-edge print-to-speech (for rights-enabled titles) and full-color 3-D technologies, is the brainchild of futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, CEO of K-NFB Reading Technology. Blio delivers the most advanced, flexible and open reading platform in the world. Blio simply brings books to life. And Blio is also hardware neutral, meaning it works on a number of devices, including personal computers, laptops, netbooks, iPhones and iPads.

About Baker & Taylor

Baker & Taylor Inc. (www.baker-taylor.com) is a global media distribution company and leading provider of digital media services. Baker & Taylor ensures that its more than 30,000 publishing partners get their materials into readers' hands in the format and on their device of choice. Baker & Taylor is especially proud to power Blio, the world's most advanced, flexible and engaging e-reader software application. Based in Charlotte, N.C., Baker & Taylor has been in existence for more than 180 years and has developed long-term relationships with major publishers.

Baker & Taylor maintains one of the largest in-stock book inventory in the United States, and services the broadest customer base in the industry. Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., an institutional private equity fund managed by Castle Harlan Inc., a leading private equity investment firm. Baker & Taylor and the Baker & Taylor logo are trademarks of Baker & Taylor, Inc. Blio is a trademark of K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc. Other company and product names mentioned for identification purposes may be trademarks of their respective owners.

About Quayside

Quayside Publishing Group (www.quaysidepublishinggroup.com) represents a dynamic group of imprints dedicated to providing quality and excellence to its readers. Each imprint embodies the breadth and scope of its non-fiction specialty topics. Quayside encompasses Creative Publishing international, Fair Winds Press, Motorbooks, MVP Books, Quarry Books, Quiver Books , Rockport Publishers, Voyageur Press, Walter Foster Publishing and Zenith Press. Quayside, a division of the U.K.-based Quarto Group, has offices in Beverly, Mass., Minneapolis, Minn., and Irvine, Calif.

About K-NFB Reading Technology Inc.

K–NFB Reading Technology has propelled reading technology forward for the last 30 years with the invention of omnifont OCR, flatbed scanners, text-to-speech technology and reading machines for the blind. Once again, K-NFB is redefining the boundaries of the printed word, via Blio – the new generation in e-reading. This free application, works across platforms, and presents books as they are intended, in full color, as laid out by the publisher. A joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind, K-NFB is headed by CEO Ray Kurzweil, a 30-year innovator and pioneer in assistive technologies. The National Federation of the Blind is the largest, most influential membership organization of blind people in the United States. For more on Blio, created by K-NFB Reading Technology and powered by Baker & Taylor, go to www.blioreader.com. For more on Blio, created by K-NFB Reading Technology and powered by Baker & Taylor, go to www.blioreader.com.

SOURCE Baker & Taylor, Inc.