Inside the Australian and New Zealand book industry

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Sony opens ebookstore in Australia

Sony has opened its Reader Store in Australia, offering a range of local and international ebooks. The Reader Store has previously been available in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Austria and Japan.

Among the local publishers with titles in the ebookstore are Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Allen & Unwin, HarperCollins, Hachette, Pan Macmillan, Hardie Grant Egmont and Text Publishing. In some cases, however, overseas editions of local titles from different publishers are also available. The Reader Store editorial team, based in Luxemburg, decides what titles are featured on the homepage.  

The ebooks are available in EPUB format and most files contain DRM in the form of Adobe ID. The store is aimed at users of Sony Reader devices, but the ebooks can be used on any devices that support the same format.  

Ebooks can be downloaded onto a computer via Sony’s ebook library management software, Reader for Mac and Reader for Windows, and then uploaded to a Sony Reader device using a USB cable. Users of Sony Reader wifi devices can also buy ebooks directly from the Reader Store and sync the ebooks to their devices without a computer connection.  

While there are no Sony apps for Android and iOS devices to browse the Australian Reader Store, the ebooks can be viewed in any app supporting the EPUB format. 

‘We are proud to bring our Reader Store eBook offering to customers in Australia,’ said managing director of Sony Digital Reading Services Tad Kitsukawa in a statement. ‘With the widely accepted, open EPUB format and our focus on local Australian eBook selections, we believe Australians will be excited to choose Reader Store for any book they want to read.’

‘Reader Store gives the publishing industry an exciting new distribution channel, broadening choice for consumers who can enjoy a wide choice of titles without being tied into inflexible, proprietary ebook formats,’ said Sony in a statement.

 

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Category: Local news