Provide Distribution Rights for Your Content

Readers get access to books by redeeming alphanumeric codes. By default, a content owner can only create codes against its own owned content. However, there are many situations where the content owner/publisher might want a third party to generate codes for their users, such as a university generating codes for their students.

To accomplish this, the content owner can give distribution rights to another company for specific titles. This adds these titles to the distributor company’s inventory, allowing them to create access codes for their readers. 

Depending on the terms of your VitalSource contract, you may have the ability to provide those rights.  Publishers have several options when granting distributions rights:

• Simply provide rights. This gives the distributor the ability to generate codes. 
• Provide a custom price. If the publisher and distributor have established a custom price for the content, that can be added when the distribution is established. 
• Provide a custom ISBN. In some cases, the publisher may want the distributor to request the content under a special ISBN for accounting purposes. Or, the distributor's systems may require a different identifier than would be provided by default. In these cases, a custom ISBN can be provided when the distribution is established. 
• Provide both a custom price and custom ISBN. 

Provide Distribution Rights with a Custom Price One at a Time  

1. Log in to Manage.   
2. Click on the hamburger icon  to access the main menu.  
3. From the Content tab, click Basic Search.  
4. In the search bar, enter either the VBID, eISBN, author name, or the title of your asset, click on the search icon , or just press enter. 
5. Find the title for which you want to distribute with a custom price and select Pricing from the dropdown menu. 
6. In the Add price for menu, on the Price Type dropdown menu, select Custom Price. 
7. Enter the custom price and select the currency. 
8. On the Distributor field, search and select the distributor name from the dropdown menu.  

9. If the distributor requires a unique SKU for this product, enter the custom SKU under Create New Custom ISBN. Otherwise, leave it blank. 
10. Click on the Update Price button to create your custom price.  

Review your submission under Current Prices for the product, the date when it was created, and the person who created it. To remove the custom price, click Deactivate from the Current Prices section. 

Provide Distribution Rights Without a Custom Price One at a Time   

1. Log in to Manage.   
2. Click on the hamburger icon  to access the main menu.  
3. From the Content tab, click Basic Search.  
4. In the search bar, enter either the VBID, eISBN, author name, or the title of your asset, click on the search icon , or just press enter. 
5. Find the title for which you want to provide distribution rights and click Distributors. 
6. On the left side bar under Overview, click on the length of time you want to assign rights for.
7. Under the Add distribution rights for area, type the name of the distributor, then select the distributor from the list. 
8. If the distributor requires a custom ISBN for this product, enter the custom SKU under Custom ISBN/Pub ID. Otherwise, leave it blank. 
9. Click Add distributor to assign distribution rights. 

To remove those rights, click Remove.  

To prevent the rights to be removed from a bulk update, click Lock. You may or may not have permissions for this option. 

Provide Distribution Rights in Bulk to One or Several Distributors 

1. Log in to Manage.   
2. Click on the hamburger icon  to access the main menu. 
3. From the Distribution & Pricing tab, click Add/Remove Rights. 
4. From the Mode section, click Add Rights. 
5. In Content, enter the VBIDs, eISBN, rental, or package SKU.
6. In the Distributors field, enter the name of the distributor(s), then select it from the dropdown menu. You can add multiple distributors here. 
7. Click Submit when done. A green banner in the header will confirm that distribution rights have been added.

Provide Distribution Rights in Bulk from a Spreadsheet

1. Log in to Manage.   
2. Click on the hamburger icon  to access the main menu. 
3. From the Distribution & Pricing tab from the main menu, click Custom Price Bulk Upload. 
4. Using the downloadable template and on-page instructions, you will be able to 
   • Distribute products 
   • Assign custom ISBNs
   • Assign custom prices
   • Change or expire existing custom prices
   • Remove custom ISBNs