News

« Headlines

Waterstone's to stock Sony ebook

01.05.08 Graeme Neill

Waterstone's is believed to have signed a deal to stock Sony’s e-book reader when it is introduced into the UK later this year. It is understood that the retailer will be the exclusive vendor of the device in the UK.

The electronics giant is widely expected to reveal next month that its Sony Reader, which retails in the US for $299 (£150), will be introduced to the UK.

Waterstone's is thought to have signed a deal with Sony to sell the device instore from this summer, and has been in talks with publishers about selling e-books.

A number of trade publishers have rushed to announce e-book plans in the past few weeks and have been working hard to clear e-books rights on their backlists. Both Penguin and HarperCollins have adopted the .ePub format, which is expected to be readable on the Sony device following an upgrade.

Waterstone's will be the first bookseller in the UK to sell an e-book device, and the move will put it in direct competition with Amazon.com, whose Kindle reader is expected to migrate from the US to the UK later in the year.

In the US, Borders had an exclusive contract for the Reader until the end of 2006.

Retail waterstone's e-books Graeme Neill Sony Home digitisation

Add comment

By posting on this website you agree to the Bookseller Comments Policy. Comments go direct to live, please be relevant, brief and definitely not abusive. Report any "unsuitable" comments by clicking the links.

Name

Comment

Email

Comments on this article

By David Kessler

The good thing about the Sony eBook Reader is that by using an industry standard format (PDF) it doesn't try to lock in customers to one source. This means that the minnows like Bookstoliostento will be able to compete with the big fish like Waterstones and Amazon. And that in turn is good news for independent authors who would rather collect up to 90% of the cover price instead of the 35% that Amazon offers for the Kindle.

02 Sep 08 16:01

Unsuitable?

See Also