Diller invests in e-book venture

IAC/InterActiveCorp Chairman Barry Diller, producer Scott Rudin and publishing executive Frances Coady are investing in a book venture that will try to challenge Amazon.com Inc.’s dominance in the industry.

The project, called Brightline, is expected to release fiction and nonfiction titles by mid-2013, New York-based IAC said Wednesday. Brightline will make electronic books for mobile devices using software by Brooklyn-based Atavist, which will exchange minority equity interests with the venture.

“Publishing will change more in the next 10 years than it has in the last hundred,” Diller said in the statement. “We have the resources and they have the ability, using Atavist’s technology and digital smarts, to play a continuing and significant role in that transformation.”

Coady, who has been a publishing executive at Picador, Granta and Random House UK, will be president and publisher of Brightline. Rudin, whose films include “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Moneyball” and “Zoolander,” will be a full partner in the venture, according to the statement.