Barnes & Noble makes October 20 event official

Barnes & Noble has sent invitations to select media for an October 20 event in New York. Many expect the company to launch its own brand of e-book reader.

(Credit: CNET)

Barnes & Noble has sent out invitations to a New York event next week, where many expect the company will launch its own electronic-book model.

"Barnes & Noble cordially invites you to a major event in the company's history," Barnes & Noble said in an invitation received by CNET News. The launch comes conveniently (especially for this San Francisco-based reporter) two days before Microsoft uses New York as the launch pad for Windows 7.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Barnes & Noble is working on its own e-reader to rival products from Amazon and Sony. Barnes & Noble has already struck deals to serve as the bookstore for e-readers made by others, including Plastic Logic.

The company launched its own book-reading software in July, following its March purchase of Fictionwise.com.

Back in 2000, Barnes & Noble launched an e-book store, but discontinued sales of electronic books three years later.

[bookshire]

It's an ugly cycle. I should be hopeful I suppose, but after so many eReaders, I'm not. This device will be yet another attempt by a company to get publishers to get behind their format and nobody elses, and it won't work because there are so many formats out there and publishers are very careful about where they spend their money.

The ebook business has such potential to take off, but not until everybody gets behind one SINGLE standard format and then makes the competition about device features. What good does it do me if a series of books I like is broken up so badly that some books are in one format while other books are in one or two others. So I have to own two of three book readers just to have them all. It does happen. That's no more convenient than buying hardcopy.

Then there's the publishers' mentality that says "Ok, we'll release a couple books out of this particular series, in no particular order, just in this one format to see if people buy them" like some kind of experiment. That's just as annoying. If we just had one format that every reader could read, then publishers would be all over it like wildfire.

One format. This is just text, for crying out loud. One format, multiple competing devices. Why is that so hard?

[zyxxy]

ePub.

The whole world (outside Amazon) is jumping on ePub. Rumor has it that B&N will also support ePub. We'll all know soon.

I will not buy an e-reader that does not support ePub.

[RHartzell]

Many expect the company to launch it's own brand of e-book reader.

That's "its" own brand of e-book reader.

Sincerely yours,
The Orthography Police

[jpfalcone]

Thanks for flagging. Now fixed.

[AppleSuxLeo]

Another WIN for ANDROID !