Barnes & Noble eBook Deal a Blow to Amazon and Google, Says Largest Independent eBookstore

Barnes&Noble’s acquisition of Fictionwise delivers a blow to Amazon and Google. According to Bob LiVolsi, CEO of BooksOnBoard (www.booksonboard.com), now the largest independent ebookstore, Amazon and Google will not be allowed to dominate and control content, something they have attempted with Amazon’s Booksurge initiative and Google’s Book Search effort.

“We are very happy for both Fictionwise and Barnes & Noble. The acquisition creates a large, viable competitor for Amazon and Google, that can prevent the two monopolies from dominating the industry and content, giving the consumer more choice and giving long-term hope to new authors,” said LiVolsi.

BooksOnBoard asserts that independent ebookstores are critical to the industry. In 2003, in a financial decision, Barnes & Noble deleted hundreds of thousands of customer ebookshelves. Amazon did the same thing in 2005. Between the two, they eradicated tens of millions of dollars worth of customer investment in eBooks to help their stock price.

“Large corporations make decisions premised on quarterly earnings and pressure from Wall Street,” LiVolsi said, “Independents value the customer as highly as the customer values them. Stock price and Wall Street gambits don’t play in our decision-making. The customer and the customer’s investment are always #1 at BooksOnBoard.”

One group very likely to be affected by the advent of large companies entering the ebook market is small publishers. LiVolsi said, “For our part, we have a responsibility as the largest independent to make it easier for small publishers and their authors, often ignored by big corporate enterprises, to offer their titles through our store. We will be accelerating our outreach to this segment.”

BooksOnBoard (www.booksonboard.com) is the largest independent online retailer of eBooks, downloadable audiobooks, Sony PRS-505 eBook Readers, Sony PRS-700 eBook Readers, and Cybook eBook Readers. Known for strong customer support, free online tutorials, and aggressive prices, BooksOnBoard has the largest eBook catalog online with over 200,000 titles. BooksOnBoard also offers a mobile site for the iPhone; directions on how to download to your iPhone or iPod Touch are available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le2-qEWfaGY. For the latest from BooksOnBoard, subscribe to the RSS feed: http://www.booksonboard.com

Contact Information

Nathan Johnson

Director of Operations

BooksOnBoard

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