Shortcovers 'Kindle killer' e-reader under way for smartphones

While hardware makers have failed to produce an "iPhone killer," a major book seller is now readying a software application for iPhone, BlackBerry and other smartphones, that will be marketed as a "Kindle killer."

Although the Shortcovers application surely won't be the only e-reader out there for smartphones, its parent company, Indigo Books and Music, just so happens to be the biggest book retailer in Canada.

How will Shortcovers really stack up? Some are predicting that Indigo will be able to exploit its relationships with large US publishers such as Random House to produce e-book titles unavailable anywhere else.

Critics, though, are pointing to Shortcovers' planned pricing scheme as one potential disadvantage, and the relative difficulty of reading an e-book on a mobile phone -- in comparison to a dedicated device such as Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader -- as another drawback.

On its upcoming launch date, Shortcovers is expected to have about 50,000 complete e-books on hand from a new mobile Web site, along with some 200,000 individual chapters and other excerpts. Magazine and newspaper articles will be offered, too, said Michael Serbinis, the company's CTO.

While Shortcovers will allow you to read the first chapter of a book free of charge, subsequent chapters will cost 99 cents each, for those who opt to read on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Alternatively, you'll be able to purchase an entire e-book for about $10 to $20, or to order delivery of the same book in traditional, non-electronic form.

On a related note, Indigo runs brick-and-mortar retail stores under the Indigo as well as the Chapters and Coles names. But in this case, "Chapters" has a different meaning. Indigo acquired the once-competing Chapters chain -- along with the Coles stores owned by Chapters -- via a hostile takeover in 2001.

Indigo also operates an existing online store called Chapters.Indigo.ca. On a visit to that site today, Betanews found that you can already read chapters of some e-books for free using a standard Web browser. From there, you can choose to write a review, send the chapter to a friend, share the chapter on Facebook, or order delivery of the traditional book.

Unlike Amazon's recently introduced Kindle 2, Indigo's forthcoming Shortcovers won't use E-ink to make pages appear more like they would in an old-fashioned real world book.

On the other hand, Shortcovers will let you read an e-book on your phone in landscape mode, and it will offer control over font sizes. The application will also include a feature that allows you to start reading a book where you last left off, Serbinis said.

Moreover, devices such as the iPhone and BlackBerry Storm offer a lot more screen real estate than older cell phones for reading, according to Serbinis. In a Twitter-accessible video interview, originally aired from CES on USA Today's Tech Talk Live show, Serbinis also cited touch enablement and GPS as other advantages of newer smartphone platforms.

Serbinis suggested, for instance, that by using GPS to know where a user is located, an e-reader application might send information about the closest spot for picking up a traditional paper-based book.

Interestingly, Amazon's Kindle isn't even available in Indigo's own home country of Canada, according to accounts this week in Canadian newspapers.

Shortcovers, of course, will be available in Canada. But ironically, that won't happen until shortly after its US rollout later this month. "The US is the biggest market in the world. [It has] the most iPhones in the world, so it's a great place to launch Shortcovers," Serbinis contended.