'Kindle killer' Shortcovers covers a lot

Hey, Kindle 2! Apparently you have some legitimate competition calling itself the "kindle killer."

OK, enough with the cuteness. So far I've yet to be personally interested in the Kindle 2. That most likely has to do with the price of the unit. I just don't have the time to read enough books to make $360 for an e-reader worth it.

(Credit: CBC News)

Indigo's Shortcovers caught my eye, though. PCWorld is reporting that the service is set to launch later in February as an app for the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android OS.

Shortcovers lets you read the first chapter of any book free of charge. It then gives you the option to either buy a chapter at a time, or purchase the whole book. Single chapters are expected to cost around 99 cents each, with full books averaging between $10 and $20. You'll also have the option to have the book shipped to you physically if you prefer.

Shortcovers is owned and operated by Indigo Books & Music, supposedly the largest book retailer in Canada.

While there are e-readers for the iPhone like Stanza and services like Bookworm already available, Shortcovers will be leveraging its close ties to the publishing industry to differentiate this service.

At launch, Shortcovers expects to have about 50,000 full books available, with another 200,000 individual chapters and excerpts in its library. According to PCWorld only a third of the titles will be public domain or copyright-expired works. The rest will be current commercial offerings.

Shortcovers plans to offer news and magazine articles, short stories, and blog posts in addition to the book content.

Check back soon for an update as we should have a beta version of the software in our hands before long.

[jabberwolf]

Nice feature but almost all iphone apps have trendy but no thought about utility.

Have you tried to read from a Kindle? Its barely large enough to not be annoying.
The iphone is waaaayyy smaller. Sure it's a nice app, but will it be used like the kindle? Hell no. They might as well just have books sold as PDFs and read them that way on any format you wish. But chances are, you'll want to read a book on something about the same size as a small book.

[forever4now]

Making e-books available for smartphones is what is key. Smartphones are evolving and some of the new form factors (e.g. tablets) and display technologies (e.g. OLED) are likely to make reading on them more compelling.

[tipoo_]

GO CBC!

[paulimusmaximus]

I could read books, newspapers, magazines, etc. 10 years ago on my palm pilot too. But I didn't, because the screen was too small to make it worth it, and I hate reading off electronic devices. I haven't seen the kindle, but I imagine it would have to be a lot better than reading a book on an iphone simply because the screen is bigger, and the electronic ink display is supposed to make reading easier on the eyes. I think they need to get the price point down to between $100-$200 for it to be readily adopted though.

[jneclar]

I think the application is conceptually a good idea. The biggest problem I forsee is eye fatigue and the continuous strain from reading small font. I have the G1, and I have a public domain book app that I thought I would use, and to be honest, it's not all that great; not only is the font small, but it also drains battery life like you would not believe. I like the idea of the Kindle, but for $360, I'll pass on it for now. I'll just stick to my hard/paperback books.

[stevhecto]

MediaWatch.com article excerpt about Kindle 2:

Eric Ginsberg, vice president of marketing at BookSwim based in Newark, N.J., agrees that pricing is key. His company rents books, much like Netflix Inc. rents movies, and eventually plans to also embrace the downloadable content model. But for now, with the economic recession closing the pocketbooks of most consumers, Ginsberg said his company's business is doing well as a service renting physical books.

"More and more people are subscribing to BookSwim because they want to keep living their lives, but they want to have budgets," Ginsberg said. "We are following [e-book vendors] Amazon and Google and Sony but mostly right now it's hype."

[iroq321]

And this is a "kindle killer" how? beacuse it's way too small to want to read an entire book on? because the brightness combined with the size of the screen is sure to cause more eye strain? because it will drain your phone's battery? because it doesn't have the complete functionality of the kindle? i don't see it...

[Renegade Knight]

Books are still too expensive. 10-20 bucks for a disposable book? Gack.

[batpox]

The review and these posts are oddly by people that don't actually use a Kindle. If you read books, the Kindle is an absolutely wonderful device. Because of e-Ink, you can read it down on the beach like it was paper (put it in a ziploc bag to protect it). It is always easy to use, light, on-line, no subscription fees, very readable, phenomenal battery life, and source of inexpensive books and magazines. But - it is not a computer, or a phone, or an MP3 player... it is simply a fantastic book reader.

[tcr071]

I read books, a lot of them, and the Kindle is most certainly NOT an absolutely wonderful device. If you have some sort of arthritis problem where you have trouble flipping pages I could understand the need for a kindle but stuff like that is just about it.

I buy used books. Anywhere I can find them everywhere I can find them. I rarely pay more than $10 a book and if I do it is only about $12 or $13. The books are paperback and very easy to just put in my laptop bag and GO. A book is inherently portable I don't need something to make a portable product more portable. When I finish reading the book I put it on the bookshelf and put another book in the bag. The kindle doesn't even necessarily IMPROVE on the reading experience outside of making a heavy book light. I can't read in the freaking dark with a device that costs $360+???? For $360 I expect something more than just the ability to read, it needs to significantly enhance the reading experience and it doesn't do that at ALL.

Another thing is the cost. $360 just for the ability to read a book? Unless these books are $5 MAX I can't possibly understand how I could break even with this. Most book prices I have seen for the Kindle are $8.99 - $9.99. I would have to buy 500+ books to break even with the device and at my rate of buying three books a month I would break even on the Kindle sometime around 2022. What a deal!

[twriter]

First of all, the iPhone (and I have one) and similarly sized portable devices are just two small to read a book. This app is DOA for its intended purpose. The Kindle is barely better; it's screen is still way too small, and who the heck needs a keyboard to read? Now make something that size that's all screen, top to bottom, side to side, no more than 0.5" bezel, with otherwise similar specs, price it at $99 (or even $49; this is, after all, just the "razor" (or the printer), and you're money is made selling the overpriced "blades" (or the cartridges)), and you've got a deal.

[gqpenn2]

I disagree. I now read all my books on my iPhone using the eReader app. The app allows plenty of versatility in font size and background.

[breakaoss]

The kindle has many more advantages that some of you aren't pointing out (and i don't even have one). Amazing for the college student who can get most of his books on the kindle that are cheaper and he doesn't have to carry multple books around.

There are a few other advantages but both the kindle and this iphone application both techincally have them, only the kindle does a much better job.

[breakaoss]

I meant to be more specific that the books are cheaper than what is usually found in the college book stores. Not to mention no more waiting in line for books!

[unchienne]

While I admit that the price is steep enough to keep me at the library, I doubt that the applications of which this article references will become true competition for the Kindle. I don't own one, but have seen enough pictures and videos of the kindle to realize it's much larger than an iphone. Considering that it's the more mature generation that make up the large portion of recreational reading, the font size alone is enough to make this new service a dud. I'm not being ageist here...after hitting 33 myself, I find I prefer a normal size font over reading teeny, tiny letters on a backlit screen. Small might be the new trend but not when it comes to books. I see myself buying a Kindle in the near future as I like the idea of getting rid of all the clutter in my office and having my entire library condensed on one tablet. This doesn't mean I suffer from brand loyalty. If another company produced a similar device, I'd look at that as well, but with online browsing charges, small font, and probably a service subscription too...Shortcovers isn't really ringing my bell.

[kevin westmoreland]

First - any device as small as a PDA or cellphone will be used very little for reading books. I have tried it with Palms, Blackberries, and WIndows Mobile devices and it is not a reasonable option to carrying a book or the Kindle. As for those of you knocking the Kindle, you are right about the price. Unless you are an early adopter it may not make sense. But the knock on reading in the dark? You can't read a book in the dark now. There should be a backlight at some point, and I'm sure there will be.

And the most compelling reason for me to have the Kindle has nothing to do with price. It is the fact that I don't consume any trees to read the 1500 books that the device can hold. The price needs to fall, but right now it's like some other environmentally sound options in our lives - it costs something to do the right thing.

[revoxx]

Indigo and Chapters merged years ago making Indigo the largest retailer of books in Canada, not the supposedly largest. Indigo is just your run of the mill expensive book retailer.

[StoweAway65]

I too find it really odd that people that don't have a Kindle or haven't used one find it necessary to bash it. It's a bit weird and irresponsible from a journalism standpoint to bash any device with no hands on experience. I'm not saying that Shortcovers is bad - on the contrary - giving the consumer multiple options based on their preference is capitalism at its finest. However, I'm not completely sure why bashing opposing devices is quite necessary. And there are just a few points in this article that lead you to believe that Shortcovers has features/benefits unavailable on the Kindle and are a bit misleading:

"Shortcovers lets you read the first chapter of any book free of charge." -- so does Amazon Kindle.

"...full books averaging between $10 and $20' - Kindle books range from $9.99 to $14.99.

"Shortcovers expects to have about 50,000 books available." - Kindle has over 200,000 titles available not including those already available on the public domain.

"Shortcovers plans to offer news and magazine articles ..." - Kindle already offers this including not just "articles" but entire magazine and newspaper subscriptions."

[Steev227]

The price of the Kindle is ridiculous. I can't imagine this thing taking hold at all until they can price it at $99 tops.

[make_or_break]

Wait until Oprah gets a hold of the new one, just like she did with the old one. Talk about sales traction.

[gaddzeit]

I can't believe that no one is commenting on this:

Shortcovers is billed as an ebook service akin to kindle, ereader/fictionwise, etc. But there is one MAJOR difference: you cannot download a copy of your book purchase to either your unit (Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Mobile, etc) or even a backup copy to your hard-drive. All you are doing is reading the book as HTML on your screen, essentially, a web page.

What happens if this site is not a success in a year and is shutdown? What happens if the book publisher decides to pull the digital licensing on the book you have purchased? What happens if you want to read the book offline (airplane reading, anyone?)

This is more akin to a subscription service, but you don't (like O'Reilly's Safari tech book subscription service) pay a monthly fee to access a bookshelf. You pay for the INDIVIDUAL BOOK.

Shortcovers needs to amend its software to allow the permanent download, backup, and thereby offline viewing of their books. Otherwise, you are paying for a book that you never own--you just get permission to read the book as web pages.