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Electronic books are about to get a serious boost from Barnes & Noble.com.

The company has launched a new electronic publishing division, aimed at encouraging writers to write eBooks and at encouraging readers to buy them. Barnes & Noble Digital will offer writers editorial support, online sales monitoring, and publicity while linking them with readers.

"[We] have 6 million readers, and an author by working with us can make a book available to our consumers," says Michael Fragnito, publisher, Barnes & Noble Digital. "We know who bought Dean Koontz's book and we can contact them and say, 'Do you want to buy Dean Koontz's new book?'"

The company will develop original eBook titles from well-known authors, such as best-selling novelist Koontz. He has been tapped as the first author to create an original eBook, The Book of Counted Sorrows, for Barnes & Noble Digital. The first eBook titles are expected out in the first half of this year.

Using eBook devices, readers can take notes while reading, bookmark a page, highlight text, search for particular words and phrases, create drawings, and use a dictionary to look up meanings of words as they read. They also have the option of downloading eBooks onto portable devices. Barnes & Noble Digital hopes to create eBooks that include images and audio, as well as links to other sites.

"There's a convenience factor. One can download ten to 20 books on their laptop and take it wherever they go," Fragnito says. "Kids will go to school in the next ten years with some sort of dedicated device within which will be their textbooks."

Barnes & Noble Digital will also give authors a larger share of income from their work, and sell eBooks at lower retail prices. Authors will receive a 35 percent royalty of the retail price of books sold either directly through Barnes & Noble.com's eBookStore or any one of its affiliate network of more than 400,000 Web sites.

They will also get half of the net revenues received by the company from sales through third parties (other eBook retailers that buy books from Barnes & Noble). Literary agents will be able to track updated figures on their clients' sales through a password-protected program.

Reasons to Read

Most eBooks will be priced between $5.95 to $7.95, less than the print editions. No sales tax will be charged in U.S. states, except New York, nor will shipping and handling charges be levied.

"[Readers] can buy [eBooks] whenever and wherever they are," Fragnito says. "If you download Microsoft Reader, then you'd go online and purchase an eBook in the same way you'd buy a print book. You would then go to the URL and download the book." Barnes & Noble Digital also maintains a password-protected library that allows readers to maintain and save content.

EBooks will be available in all existing formats, including Microsoft Reader, the RCA REB 1100 portable device, and Glassbook Reader from Glassbook.

While the company plans to publish valuable books that are currently out of print, the focus is on digital versions of general interest books in print, including fiction, science-fiction, business, history, biography, self-help, technology, and current affairs.

"The percentage of the U.S. population to buy a book in a given year is less than 10 percent," Fragnito says. "We think we can expand the marketplace to people who may not want to go to a bookstore."

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