Yahoo! scripts an e-book offering
Published: 06 Sep 2001 08:31 BST
Angling for lift in a market that has stubbornly refused to take off, Yahoo! has signed deals with four major book publishers to sell e-books on its shopping channel.
Penguin Putnam, Simon & Schuster, Random House and HarperCollins are marketing their books on Yahoo!'s new e-book site. Featured titles range from new books to classics such as Thackeray's "Vanity Fair."
E-books have been slow to catch on. Analysts cite numerous roadblocks hindering consumer adoption, chief among them the high cost of e-book readers and widespread satisfaction with current paperback and hardback technology.
In announcing the deal with publishers, Yahoo! acknowledged it is dealing with a nascent market.
"As technology enables consumers to access digital content more conveniently, we anticipate that there will be increasing demand for e-books," Rob Solomon, general manager of Yahoo! Shopping, said in a statement. "Aggregating a broad collection of the most sought-after titles in multiple e-book formats positions us effectively to meet these needs today and to meet growing consumer demand in the future," he said.
The site now offers more than 1,000 listings, which are available for download using either Adobe's Acrobat eBook Reader or Microsoft's Reader, which are both available free of charge.
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