Shortcovers plans to launch an e-books app for iPhone in the coming days. Owned by Indigo Books & Music, the largest book retailer in Canada, Shortcovers will offer 50,000 full books as well as news, magazine articles, short stories, and blog posts.
Like Kindle, Shortcovers will let you read the first chapter of any book free of charge. From there, the app offers you two options: You can either buy a chapter at a time, or opt to purchase the whole book. Single chapters are expected to cost around 99 cents a pop, while full books will range between $10 and $20, on average. If you decide you want to get a book physically shipped, you can do that, too.
The application is expected to be offered on Apple’s iTunes online App Store soon.
In this area, Amazon has confirmed that its Kindle book collection will soon be accessible on mobile devices, while Google’s already announced to put their Book Search service onto iPhone as well as Android devices.
[via PCWorld]
Between $10-$20!!! Why do electronic copies cost at least as much as the hard copy versions? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that selling books online costs a tiny fraction of selling a book in a store. Piracy is going to become more and more common as this gouging gets more and more ridiculous.