Barnes & Noble has recently announced that it has purchased Fictionwise.com and eReader.com, both owned by Fictionwise, for $15.7 million in cash. The e-Reader is an electronic format used to download e-books to devices and cell phones. Recently e-Reader has launched a new product that allows Blackberry users to download e-books. It is apparent that Barnes & Noble has decided to take on Amazon.com and its Kindle with this move. It is thought that cell phones or devices that work on cell phone connections may be the reading devices of choice in the end. On announcing the sale, Barnes & Noble stated it would launch an e-bookstore this year.

The e-Reader format does not support the Kindle device sold by Amazon. And Amazon has recently announced they will not offer downloads in any format except that which works on Kindle. So this may be a showdown for e-book formats such as Betamax and VHS waged for VSRs during the 1980s.

Regardless of who wins, this kind of focus will undoubtedly increase the market for e-books. That is why authors and companies offering services to authors who wish to engage in self-publishing must make more concerted efforts to offer books in all forms – print-on-demand, e-book, e-reader, new Google database registry, Safari, and more. I don't think anyone could have imagined how quickly the book publishing industry would change once the change began. It is like the slow melting of snow that eventually creates enough cracks and fissures to become an avalanche. But the snow is coming down the mountain. The place of traditional publishers is giving way to a boom in self-publishing while the predominance of bricks and mortar bookstores is being overshadowed by online bookstores.

Book production is changing from mass production to print on demand when that makes sense. And hard copies of books in print are being more often replaced by digital e-books, read on computer screens, readers, and phones.These shifts will create a great deal of pain in the industry. Authors and publishers have a new world to adjust to, and earnings and royalties will undoubtedly be affected. But in the end, the promise is that more people will have access to more content. Publishing will have been reinvented but it will continue and grow. It is unstoppable, and I think, overall, it is good.