B&N Nestles into E-Reader Nook
Book retailer Barnes & Noble, Inc., which launched its e-book strategy in March with
the acquisition of e-book retailer Fictionwise, is taking a major step forward in the e-book realm. Barnes & Noble is
now taking orders for a new wireless e-reader
called Nook it plans to start shipping late next month with a $259 USD price tag.
Nook, based on the 1.5 version of the
Android open-source development platform, allows customers 3G wireless access to AT&T’s mobile broadband network and Barnes & Noble in-store WiFi at no additional cost. In addition, Nook features a color touchscreen with
EInk display, digital book lending and bookmarking capabilities, and transfer of documents between Nook and other digital devices. According to Barnes & Noble, Nook’s wireless capabilities enables fast, seamless download of e-books and other digital publications.
The release of Nook follows a July upgrade to Barnes & Noble’s burgeoning e-book strategy. At that time, Barnes & Noble launched a new e-bookstore and upgraded proprietary Palm OS-based eReader e-book device. Barnes & Noble called the new e-bookstore the “first phase” of its digital strategy.
Barnes & Noble’s e-bookstore allows access to more than 700,000 titles at $9.95 each, which the retailer says makes it the world’s largest e-bookstore. Barnes & Noble intends to increase the selection to more than one million by next year, encompassing every available e-book from a major publisher and e-book original.
In addition, the new e-bookstore includes more than 500,000 public domain e-books from Google, free e-books for new eReader users, a free iPhone/iPod touch app, and a strategic partnership with
Plastic Logic, which provides an eReader designed for business professionals.
E-book sales appear to be on the increase and may pose a threat to the performance of traditional book sales. Amazon, the presumed current leader in the e-book space, does not release specific sales figures of its Kindle e-book downloading and reading device. However, in a note to clients, Citigroup previously estimated Kindle-related revenues of $153 million in 2008, $429 million in 2009, and $1.2 billion in 2010, off the strength of 500,000, 1 million, and 3.5 million unit sales for those years, respectively. These forecasts are based on comparisons to iPod adoption rates and Kindle pricing. Amazon
released version 2.0 of Kindle in February 2009. More recently,
Amazon purchased Lexcycle, developer of the Stanza e-book reader application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch devices, in an effort to tap into the expanding iPhone and iPod customer bases for its e-book business.
In addition, Google recently announced it would
directly sell electronically formatted books. Currently, Google enables publishers to provide it with digital files of new and out-of-print books. Users can search up to 20% of the books’ content, then follow links from Google to online retailers to buy them.
Chief Barnes & Noble rival Borders
has offered e-books and the Reader Digital Book device in partnership with Sony since 2007. Borders is also pursuing a digital strategy, offering an
interactive blog for science fiction fans, as well as a
Facebook page [reg. req'd.] dedicated to readers of young adult books and graphic novels. Furthermore, Borders communicates with customers
via the Twitter social networking site.
Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble released forecasts of declining sales and earnings for Q2 and fiscal year 2010 ended October 31, 2009 and May 1, 2010, respectively). In the face of this harsh fiscal reality, Barnes & Noble will likely continue to ratchet up its digital activities, and rivals like Amazon, Borders and Google will try to keep pace if the biggest U.S. book retailer finds success in the e-world.
