The latest wave of smart phones -- with their big screens, intuitive interfaces and application storefronts -- are providing book fans a convenient way to catch up on their reading without a dedicated device.
In the story of the e-book, the main characters have been portable reading devices like the Kindle and its rival, the Reader from Sony.
The trend got a boost when Indigo Books & Music, often called the Amazon of Canada, last week released an application called Shortcovers for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android operating systems.
The program allows people to read a sample of a book, perhaps the first chapter, for free and then buy the rest of the book all at once or chapter by chapter. Or they can order the paper version through Indigo.
Shortcovers joins a handful of other smart phone e-book options such as Fictionwise's eReader and ScrollMotion's Iceberg reader, which allows publishers to sell their books as individual applications in the iPhone App Store.
But the most popular e-book app on the iPhone has been Stanza, by Lexcycle, which has registered more than 1.4 million application downloads since launching last year.
Users have downloaded more than 5 million books, most of them free and older titles without copyright protections. Lexcycle, however, started selling paid books through Fictionwise and other distributors recently and now boasts about 90 percent of the bestsellers from last year.
Mia Amato, e-book marketer for Harlequin Enterprises, famous for its romance novels, said e-books on smart phones will serve a younger and hipper audience than consumers drawn to dedicated readers. She expects smart phones and dedicated readers will exist alongside traditional books and audio books.
"People want to receive good stories in different ways," Amato said. "They may want to read a book some days. If they have a long commute, people can pull out a netbook or listen to an audio book in the car. It's about delivering a story in a way that's convenient to people."
Shortcovers launched with about 50,000 books, many of them recent bestsellers and popular titles from major publishing houses. It's not the 240,000 books available on the recently released Kindle 2, but it represents a lot of current titles, which have not been as available on smart phones.
"I think the Kindle is very much for the avid reader, but we're for people who want the convenience factor and want to find a great read from the device they already have," said Michael Serbinis, executive vice president of Shortcovers and chief information officer for Indigo Books & Music.
Lexcycle's cco-founder Marc Prud'hommeaux said advanced smart phones like the iPhone are enabling good reading experiences, beyond what people first gave smart phones credit for. The big screens and the ability to adjust their brightness and contrast have helped convince early adopters that the reading is enjoyable and not a strain on the eyes.
"We feel we're getting to a tipping point where there is enough media attention and consumer adoption of this solution that people are really starting to get excited about it," said Prud'hommeaux.
Amazon, for its part, plans to bring Kindle books to cell phones. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in introducing the Kindle 2 last month that users will have some interoperability with their cell phones.
Amazon has not elaborated on its plans but said the rise of e-books on cell phones does not lessen the need for devices like the Kindle.
"People who love to read also want a purpose-built reading device, for the same reason you have a cell phone and a digital camera: you want a dedicated device for the things you love," said Amazon spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal.
The Kindle and its successor have taken some lumps for their $359 price but they offer some advantages. The screens are larger and use an E Ink technology, which is energy efficient enough to run for weeks. The picture is meant to be easier on the eyes, and the Kindle 2 offers 2GB of memory, a text-to-speech function and word look-up tools.
Books on smart phones offer the convenience of delivering content through an existing device, without paying for another device or extra wireless service. And they far outnumber dedicated readers like the Kindle, which observers believe has probably sold less than 1 million units. Apple alone sold 13.7 million iPhones last year.
Michael Bhaskar, digital editor for Pan Macmillan, a British publisher, credits the iPhone, with its easy interface and popular App Store, for kick starting the smart phone e-book trend. He said it has helped create a "frictionless" discovery, purchase and delivery system that makes buying books easy for consumers. And that has changed perceptions about reading on a cell phone.
"This is very important to us because it could do very well, and to not be involved now is dangerous," Bhaskar said. "For too long media companies have missed the boat after it sailed."
E-mail Ryan Kim at rkim(at)sfchronicle.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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