Barnes & Noble launches world's largest online electronic book shop
21 Jul 2009
Barnes & Noble launched what it bills as the world's largest online electronic book shop with virtual shelves holding more than 700,000 titles. The New York retailer had withdrawn from the nascent digital book market in 2006.
The major US bookseller which operates 777 stores in the US, boasted that its online bookshop has more than 700,000 titles.
Barnes & Noble's online efforts, which began in 2001 and ended five years later but has been revived now.
In March 2009, it acquired Fictionwise, an online electronic bookseller, for $15.7 million.
The moves come as rival bookseller Amazon.com Inc. is increasing its slice of the fast-growing e-book market.
Fictionwise continues to operate separate from Barnes & Noble's online bookstore.
A year after Barnes & Noble bowed out of e-books, Amazon in November 2007 launched the Kindle, which lets users wirelessly download books on the device without having to hook it up to a computer.
