B&N Drops eBooks; Powells Adds eBooks

Barnes&Noble.com announced that effective November 15th, it would no longer be a distributor of Gemstar ebooks. Neither Barnes & Noble nor Gemstar gave an official explanation for the end of this relationship. Barnes&Noble.com continues to be a distributor of Microsoft Reader and Adobe ebooks. Gemstar's ebook division does not make money on the sale of ebook devices. Rather, profits only come from the sale of ebook content, when that content is purchased from Gemstar's own bookstore (this information was provided by Steve Mannheimer from Thomson's Global Business Development- New Ventures). Therefore, it is not surprising that Gemstar is pulling out of the distribution agreements that Gemstar inherited from NuvoMedia.

Meanwhile, Powells.com has expanded its suite of ebook formats to include Microsoft and Adobe, as well as Gemstar, which Powells.com has been distributing since the early days of NuvoMedia. The ebooks can all be browsed through very fine subject classifications (over 100 subjects for Microsoft ebook titles).