Fatbrain.com Revolutionizes Publishing with the Debut of eMatter.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 18, 1999--

First Secure Digital Publishing System Brings Global Channel of

Distribution to Writers and Publishers,

Offers Secure Written Work to Readers Everywhere

Fatbrain.com(TM) (Nasdaq: FATB), the Internet's most comprehensive bookstore for professionals, today debuted its highly-anticipated eMatter(TM) content for sale at http://www.fatbrain.com. eMatter is the first-ever secure digital publishing solution that allows authors and publishers to publish and sell their works online, earning royalties of at least 50 percent on every copy sold. The eMatter program provides a new global distribution channel for works of all kinds, including books, magazines and articles. In addition, eMatter is ideal for specialty documents, which may include articles that are longer than a magazine but shorter than a book and out-of-print materials.

A growing number of authors and publishers continue to sign up to deliver content, taking advantage of the financial opportunity and delivery options of this new digital publishing model. In the six weeks since the eMatter service was first introduced, more than 3,000 writers - including notable authors Richard Bach, Riane Eisler, Catherine Lanigan, Geoffrey Moore, Ira Pohl and Dan Poynter - have registered to sell their work as eMatter content. In addition, publishers including CAP Ventures, Inc., The Coriolis Group, LLC., Fawcette Technical Publications, Hampton Roads Publishing, Macmillan USA, Marketing Technology, McGraw-Hill, O'Reilly & Associates, Publish Magazine, Red Herring, Salon.com and The Industry Standard also have signed up to provide eMatter content.

eMatter combines new secure digital rights technologies with Fatbrain.com's established community of customers to provide a rich channel for the exchange of timely, valuable information between writers and readers everywhere. Original eMatter content available today covers a broad range of professional topics including technology, business, finance, medicine and science, plus a variety of creative subjects such as fiction, poetry, self-help and how-to guides.

"Fatbrain.com's eMatter initiative has opened up an entirely new channel in the publishing arena that combines content security with a global delivery vehicle that will create the foundation of new publishing in the future," said Chris MacAskill, co-founder and CEO of Fatbrain.com. "The first word was spoken. Then it was written down. Then it was printed. Then it became controlled. Today the controls are being removed. A revolution is happening as we enter the new millennium."

eMatter Community

Readers may find eMatter content by conducting specific keyword searches or searching by category. In addition, they may take advantage of Fatbrain.com's new eMatter community to conduct extensive searching among eMatter and Fatbrain.com's entire selection of titles, read previews and peer reviews, and contribute reviews and reactions.

"Fatbrain.com has brought to market a technology that opens up the publishing market so that documents can be placed with precision, not according to pre-set rules," said John Logan, chairman and founder of Aberdeen Group. "eMatter is the enabler for documents to be sold exactly as the author or company desires. There is now a forum for specialty documents for small passionate audiences, time-sensitive documents for business, as well as a delivery tool for companies that sell knowledge."

Self-publishing eMatter Documents

To publish an eMatter document, the author simply uploads the document to Fatbrain.com as an Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) file, Microsoft Word document, Postscript file or text file, sets a price, provides summary information, and then places the work into one of the thousands of subject categories available through Fatbrain.com. The published eMatter document is posted for sale at http://www.fatbrain.com, where it may be found via normal search mechanisms and then purchased for download in electronic format. The author then receives a royalty check and a detailed sales report from Fatbrain.com based on the number of people who have purchased the work.

Authors will find a comprehensive set of services for the management of their eMatter titles. These services include the ability for the author to upload new versions, new works, and update or remove previous works. Starting today, authors may view an activity report of the transactions for their eMatter indicating numbers of downloads and sales.

Fatbrain.com's eMatter offers publishers and authors instant access to an established channel of buyers plus higher royalties and greater flexibility than possible with traditional methods. For publishers, using eMatter provides advantages such as faster time-to-market, a forum for out-of-print books or individual chapter previews and sales, shorter print runs and incremental revenues. For customers, eMatter provides targeted and instantly accessible documents in electronic format - including focused information that is either hard-to-find or too limited in scope or audience to make it to market via traditional publishing.

According to William Ury, author of Getting to Yes and Getting Past No - which have sold over two million copies -- and of his new book Getting to Peace, "I am delighted that eMatter will allow important essays about peace and other topics critical to the survival of our world to be made available to people everywhere, easily and instantly. Clearly this new initiative will bring us closer together as people and foster worldwide understanding."

"Fatbrain.com's eMatter initiative presents a new and innovative forum for The Industry Standard to offer its Special Reports, which cover the most pressing issues of the Internet Economy," said Michael Romoff, business development manager for The Industry Standard. "We are pleased to expand the reach of our news and analysis from thestandard.com through the new generation of secure digital publishing being launched by Fatbrain.com."

Royalty and Pricing Structure

Publishers and authors that post digital files via the Fatbrain.com eMatter program will receive at least 50 percent royalties for each copy of the title that is sold. Publishers and authors can earn additional royalties by signing up for Fatbrain.com's affiliates program. Through this program, authors and companies offer their works online via a link from their own Web site, directing sales to Fatbrain.com's online store.

New Secure Document and Digital Rights Technologies

To secure eMatter documents, Fatbrain.com has developed new patent-pending secure digital rights technologies to protect the ownership rights of the document, which is delivered in Windows versions of Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). eMatter documents are expected to be available in Macintosh and UNIX versions in early 2000. Downloaded eMatter files have a persistent security wrapper that ensures that content is protected even if it is redistributed; only users who have purchased the eMatter file will be able to read it. If a copy of the eMatter file is opened on a different computer, the new reader is offered the option to purchase the work.

According to Judy Kirkpatrick, vice president and general manager, digital publishing for Fatbrain.com, "Fatbrain.com's eMatter initiative has been made possible by the convergence of several key factors, including our growing online community of loyal readers, a strong desire from writers everywhere to publish their works, and our new secure digital rights technology which allows these materials to be distributed while protecting the rights of the author."

About Fatbrain.com

Fatbrain.com, the Internet's most comprehensive bookstore for professionals, is the first e-commerce provider to deliver secure digital publishing through its eMatter initiative. Recently named the number two fastest-growing public company in Silicon Valley, Fatbrain.com offers a world-class selection of books, eMatter, training materials and documentation, covering a broad range of professional and general interest topics. Through its corporate intranet bookstore program, Fatbrain.com is accessible from the desktops of more than 1.3 million employees at customer sites. Fatbrain.com offers discounts of up to 40 percent, and all in-stock orders placed by 4 PM PST ship the same business day. Visit Fatbrain.com on the Web at http://www.fatbrain.com.

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Fatbrain.com and eMatter are trademarks of Fatbrain.com, Inc. All company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.