The Bookseller reports that Theresa Horner, vice-president for digital content at Barnes & Noble, has announced that the Nook will be coming to the United Kingdom in the “not too distant future.” Though B&N hasn’t determined whether it will be partnering with a UK company or creating its own UK presence, it is seriously considering expanding now that it has created “a successful platform in the US to work from.”

There has been speculation B&N might partner with the Waterstone’s chain, since having a print bookstore to work from would be beneficial to an e-reader. However, the company has also been getting involved with the publishing process with UK publishers.

[Horner] said: "There are a lot of conversations with publishers, a lot of partnerships going forward. ‘What are you capable of doing digitally?’ That’s not a conversation that would have happened two years ago." She added that the current challenge in terms of content was in finding the right non-fiction content to sell digitally, and that self-published content was a "monster conversation going on in the digital space" in the US at the moment. Ten per cent of titles on B&N’s digital bestselling lists are produced by its self-publishing programme, Pub-it.

However B&N does it, it seems that the Kindle will soon have a run for its money on the other side of the Big Pond.

1 COMMENT

  1. YES PLEASE.

    I have no idea how that would work, or whether Waterstone’s owner would accept it. (They already sell e-readers and have their own ebook store). But B&N seem to have decent hardware & firmware, and I’d hate to see Waterstones flop because they tried to do their own thing (as a smaller company). Or for B&N to flop over here because they didn’t find the right place to sell e-readers.

    Competition is good. Competition with decent products from established players would be a really good idea.

    And if B&N like self-publishing, maybe they’ll even get the store right this time & show which titles are DRM-free. (Hah! But I can dream).

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