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Sony Reader to reach Canada—while the e-book count reaches almost 40,000 at the company store
April 15, 2008 | 9:02 am
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By David Rothman
The Sony Reader “will be available for sale at the end of April” at a Candian-oriented Sony Style Web site and at Sony Style stores in Canada, except for Quebec, according to a news release. Suggested price will be $299, and you can preorder now.
Arrival date as listed on the Web site is to be May 6—not exactly “the end of April,” but presumably shipping time is built in. Meanwhile, yes, it’s great to see the Sony Reader crew finally reaching beyond the States.
U.K. next—and when?
So exactly when is the Reader going show up in the United Kingdom? The launch there was rumored at one point to be be set for the London Book Fair, happening now. But there’s also been talk of perhaps late spring, which I’d guess would be more likely.
The Sony store angle: Sony says the eBook Store is up to almost 40,000 titles. That’s fewer than half the number that Amazon offers for the Kindle, shown to the right; but then Amazon lumps magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions in with books in its 110,000 count. Anyone know what the true Kindle book count is at Amazon? Almost surely higher than the Sony store’s. But by how much?
And the continuing question about Sony: Just when will Sony release updated firmware with Adobe Digital Editions included, so that the Reader can read ePUB and both encrypted and nonencrypted PDF? Once there was talk of a February release. I’d rather that Adobe and Sony take their time and do things right. But how about an update, folks? Sony PR didn’t provide an ETA when I tried a few weeks back.
Clarification: In the last graph, I meant to say, “Both encrypted and nonencrypted POD.” The Reader can only read the nonencrypted kind right now. Fixed. Thanks, Tamas.
(Canadian angle via MobileRead.)
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Comments:
Thanks for the news David.
a small correction:
let’s hope, can read ePUB, not just encrypted PDF?
Actually the SONY Reader can read unencrypted aka plain PDF files.
Encryption and DRM applies only to their own format.
It will be interesting to see prices and whether the store will work with older models (PRS500) brought in from the US.
Hi, Tamas. Thanks. Have done tweak to clarify that. I was thinking of what DE could do with PDF, beyond the promised ePUB reading capabilities. The present Reader, yes, can read nonencrypted PDF, as I’ve said many times. Slip of the keys. Still, this is another example of the nuances that DRM requires you to pay attention to, so, unwittingly, I’ve helped my case.
Thanks. David
David says:
“but then Amazon lumps magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions in with books in its 110,000 count. Anyone know what the true Kindle book count is at Amazon?”
A quick look at the amazon website (as of 1316EDT on 04/15/06) shows that there are:
Kindle books – 117,334
Kindle newspapers – 17
Kindle blogs – 324
Kindle magazines – 11
It seems clear they do not include the number of items that are not “books” in the tally and even if they did the quantity of non-book titles is a small fraction of a percentage of their stated total.
I can’t give you a count on Kindle vs Sony. I will say that Amazon has been MUCH more cost-effective in allowing small publishers play. For Sony, there’s a required third-party conversion process which costs mucho-money. For Amazon, there’s either a direct approach (for self-publishers) or (for small publishers) getting into their catalog via Mobipocket with its free Creator software.
I realize that Amazon is far from saintly, and I think competition is a great thing. But I know of several small publishers who, like me, ended up having to decline the opportunity to participate in the Sony store because of costs. (That said, Sony users can purchase both Kindle and Sony-formatted books from Fictionwise, so the number of books in the Sony store may not really represent opportunities for Sony Reader users.
Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com
Re: Kindle #s –
Blogs, newspapers, magazines search turns up about 350 items.
At the top of the Kindle Books page, it indicates there are 117,335 items. There are definitely duplicates in that number – a search on “Jane Eyre” returns 17 versions of the book, some as part of larger collections.
You only rely on SONY if you
- want their DRM
- want to be in their store
otherwise you can sell PDF or RTF formats on your own website.
So the London Book Fair is now over and the Reader has failed to materialise, and there’s no sign of Amazon’s Kindle over here either (although I’d expect that to take longer to come out because of the need to rejig the mobile connection infrastructure). Will UK ebook readers be stuck with importing hardware and illegally stripping DRM from purchased books (since they can’t buy in the devices’ native format)?