Barnes & Noble have launched, what they claim is the worlds largest ebookstore (not sure that Amazon would agree!) They have developed their ebook products so that they can be read on a variety of platforms – including iPhones.
They are also giving away a free eReader, along with five free classic novels – that would normally sell for $4.95. After we download the free eReader, and sign in to our newly created account, “your library” has five free classics and a Merriam-Webster dictionary ready to be downloaded to our iPhone.
The B&N eReader itself, comes with two free Classics – The Last of the Mohicans, and Sense and Sensibility. Once we sign in (or create an account) we get three more classics in our online library: Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women along with Merriam-Webster’s Pocket Dictionary.
If you have been wanting to read some classics, then this is going to be a great offer for you. But even if these are not the kind of books that suit your taste, the huge range of titles may get you motivated to look around their store – which they say has over 700,000 of them – including hundreds of new releases and bestsellers. These sell for $9.99 – $22.39 – not so cheap when you consider there is no hard copy!
We wondered whether the free eReader would just work for Barnes & Noble books. It does look as if it only works with the Barns & Noble store – so is, for them, an efficient customer funneling device! However, we do get access to:
more than a half-million public domain books from Google, which can be downloaded for free
To be honest, no-one on the iPhonegizmo team have ever found a book we wanted in that collection – but we had fun looking around.
With all that in mind, and if Barnes & Noble publish the kind of books you read, then some features of the eReader that might interest you are:
the ability to modify type size and font and annotate and bookmark text, as well as an innovative auto-scroll feature enabling users hands free reading.
Take a look around their store and see if the eReader is going to be of interest. Its certainly going to be an easy and convenient way to get a book. Only experiencing it will let you know whether this is an easy way to read a book.
Checking the store I did find that some of my favorite authors – Vince Flynn and David Baldacci – are available in their ebook store. But quite a few others are not (yet?). I also noticed that Divine Justice costs more to buy as an ebook than I just paid to get it as a real book!!
