Barnes & Noble Wade into E-book Game

According to an article from WSJ.com published July 20, 2009, bookseller Barnes & Noble has taken a major step into the increasingly competitive e-book game to announce that they have started an e-bookstore with 700,000 titles that will be available to the consumer via their smart phones such as the Blackberry and iPhone.  They will offer a variety of classics and bestsellers for $9.99.  As well, B&N is including over 500,000 public domain titles for free download.

I find the development of the e-book market fascinating. With Amazon recently dropping the price on the Kindle reader, it seems that the idea of the e-book is starting to catch fire. No word yet if B&N plan on any textbook titles in their offerings, but I'm sure that many classic works of literature are already in the public domain for you English majors. The availability of e-book on the smart phone is a big game changer, since you don't have to purchase a separate device to access your e-books. Talk about being portable! It will be very interesting to see what Amazon will do in response to this offering from B&N.

If you'd like more information on textbook options for students, including sources for e-book textbooks, please see my earlier post on the subject.