In March of this year, when Barnes & Noble acquired e-book retailer Fictionwise and its 60,000 e-book catalog, many wondered what position the company would take in the battle for e-book reader sales. Now, B&N's strategy is much clearer as the company announced it was opening a store with 700,000 titles (500,000 free through a deal for public domain books with Google) that would operate on a wide range of smartphones, computers and other electronic readers, as opposed to Amazon's Kindle-only strategy.
"Our goal at Barnes & Noble is to build a service that revolves around the customer, enabling them to have access to hundreds of thousands of titles and read on their smartphone, PC, and many other existing and future devices. We want to make eBooks simple, accessible, affordable and convenient for everyone." said William Lynch, president of Barnes & Noble, in a press release.
"Instead of just betting that one device will win, they are betting on the whole category of digital reading," Sarah Rotman Epps, a media analyst for Forrester Research, told The Associated Press.
Forrester estimates that e-books make up less than two percent of book sales in the U.S.
While some may see Barnes & Noble's move as a means to grab share from Amazon, Ms. Rotman Epps sees it another way. "I don't think they will be stealing market share," she told The New York Times in a separate interview. "If anything I think they are contributing to the growth of the whole category of digital reading."
Barnes & Noble is looking to have 1 million titles in its e-library within a year. New titles retail for $9.99.
Discussion Questions: How will the Barnes & Noble's move into e-books affect the category? What do you think will be Amazon's next move?