Barnes and Nobel Opens World's Largest eBook Store

As we reported back in March this year, Barnes and Noble purchased Fictionwise, the company that owns eBookwise and eReader, and we also reported that Barnes and Noble would be opening an eBook Store sometime this year. The prediction was spot on as the company today announced the opening of their eBook store with over 700,000 ebooks within, becoming the "largest ebook store in the world".

The Barnes & Nobel eBookStore enables customers to buy eBooks and read them on the iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry smartphones, and Windows and Mac computers. In addition, the eBooks will also be readable on Barnes and Nobles upcoming Plastic Logic eReader device due out in early 2010.

The books in the store include over 700,000 titles with 500,000 of them coming from Google's public domain books which can be downloaded free of charge. There are hundreds of new releases and bestsellers going for as little as $9.99.

The B&N Plastic Logic eBook Reader will measure 8.5 x 11 (a sheet of paper) will be wireless ready and internet-enabled so that readers can download books anywhere there is a cellular signal.

"Today marks the first phase of our digital strategy, which is rooted in the belief that readers should have access to the books in their digital library from any device, from anywhere, at any time," said William J. Lynch, President of BN.com. "As Americas #1 bookstore and newsstand, our goal at Barnes & Noble is to build a service that revolves around the customer, enabling them to have access to hundreds of thousands of titles and read on their smartphone, PC, and many other existing and future devices.  We want to make eBooks simple, accessible, affordable and convenient for everyone."

Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) stock was up 0.05% in morning trading to 22.12.