This comes from Business News from The Australian news website.
Redgroup Retail to launch e-books: Angus & Robertson and Borders
REDGROUP Retail, owner of the Angus & Robertson and Borders bookstore chains, will begin selling electronic book readers and e-books within months in partnership with Canadian bookseller Indigo.
Redgroup chief David Fenlon said the company aimed to launch the Kobo e-book service late next month via its Borders online retailing division, once a sufficient library of titles was available.
Kobo, founded by Canadian bookseller Indigo, is negotiating with international publishers for the rights to sell electronic versions of its catalogues, while Redgroup is in discussions with Australian publishers.
Prices for e-books would be priced "competitively", but Mr Fenlon declined to say how the price would compare with paper editions.
"Ultimately the consumer will decide -- e-books being cheaper is the state overseas but whether that's the case in Australia is yet to be seen," he said.
While the Kobo service will be compatible with existing mobile devices such as Blackberrys, iPhones or laptops, Redgroup will also sell simple electronic readers starting at about $200.
The move into e-books follows the company's abortive 2008 attempt to introduce an in-store print-on-demand service, which ultimately foundered for lack of available titles as publishers declined to open up their back catalogues.
Mr Fenlon said the company had moved the single print-on-demand kiosk it had installed in a central Melbourne branch of Angus & Robertson to a warehouse, where it was being used to fulfil online orders for out-of-print titles and self-published manuscripts. Initial plans were for 50 units.
Mr Fenlon said the company's private equity owners, Pacific Equity Partners, were still considering when they might sell the asset into the stockmarket via an initial public offering. "We haven't made any decisions."