Shanda Literature Group, China’s largest epublisher, has launched an ebookstore with over 3 million titles. In addition it has launched it’s own ereader, called the Bambook.
According to Publishing Perspectives, the Bambook will sell for the equivalent of $147 and will be a typical e-ink unit with Wifi and a slot for mobile internet data cards. It will have voice functions in Chinese and English.
Supposedly the ebook store will have 3 million copyrighted titles, move than 10,000 books published by China’s 60 major publishing houses, 1,000 e-magazines and self-published books as well.
Ha!
Amazon opened their e-book business (the most recent one, not the abandoned attempts before) with almost 170,000 books with much fanfare. And the entire community went “Wow!” That was significantly more than anybody else had at the time.
Now, the Chinese come and they simply open an e-book store with 3 million titles.
I wonder how they are going to persuade the Chinese to start respecting intellectual property and buy the books instead of pirating them …