Nook and ante: Barnes and Noble in the game

Barnes and Noble jumped into the eBook reader wars in a big way today when they announced their new Nook.

Nook.

It's one of those words like "Jeep" that, after saying it a few times, feels funny in the mouth. Still, that is the name given, so that is the name we will use. Nooknooknooknook. I guess we will have to get used to it.

One thing we know already: With this introduction, eBooks are here to stay. Not that they weren't before, but now we have a second major retailer (the first being the king of the jungle, Amazon) willing to sell its products in a new form and at a lower price. With most eBooks priced under ten dollars, that is a major business shift for Barnes and Noble. By introducing the Nook and rolling out with it a load of premium services (built in WiFi; a color touch navigational screen; you can share a book you buy with a friend for 14 days; you can take your Nook into any Barnes and Noble store and read any book for up to two hours at a time, etc.), Barnes and Noble is shouting the obvious: Customers want the option to buy books and read books in a digital form. And now they can do it with a very cool eBook reader.

This is really good news for eMoon authors. More reading devices in the hands of more people mean more potential readers for your books. If you have been sitting on the edge of the pool, wondering if the wave of eBooks would diminish and fade away, well, you might as well jump in. You're going to get wet one way or another! Better to surf the wave then be buried by it. (Do you like how I stayed with the water metaphor all the way through?)

Oh, and be watching the response from Amazon. Jeff Bezos and his creative team are, I'm sure, working furiously to come up with the Next Thing. And, of course, we have Apple's Tablet supposedly coming out the first quarter of 2010. And that may swamp both the Kindle and the Nook. (Let's just hope Steve Jobs and Apple come up with a funkier name than Nook...) There is a lot happening on the eBook reader front right now. But none of these readers are anything more than a trinket without great books to read on them. Are you writing a great book right now? Do you have yours written and ready to publish with eMoon? If so, call or write to us. We are standing by to help get your book onto a Nook by hook or by crook.

You know, I think Dr. Seuss would have a great time with this one, don't you?