ebookish.com.au

Sydney independent bookselling chain Gleebooks will partner with Melbourne-based Booki.sh to sell ebooks, possibly from as early as next month.

Tasmanian indie Fullers, which has stores in Hobart and Tasmania, is also set to enter the ebook market with Booki.sh.

The two signings follow a successful pilot program that Booki.sh and Melbourne indie chain Readings have run here since January.

Book.ish’s Virginia Murdoch said she expected to be able to announce further partnerships within days, and that Inventive Labs, the team behind Booki.sh, of which she is a founder, hopes to be able to launch the ebookstores for Readings and Fullers as soon as mid-August.

“We’re extremely pleased to have such high-quality booksellers joining us,” she said.

Meanwhile, another Australian ebooks start-up, ReadCloud, has signed with 29 smaller independent stores, including Pages and Pages, Better Read than Dead, Shearer’s, Abbeys and Galaxy, to provide ebook sales platforms. These are due for launch as soon as October.
ReadCloud has had expressions of interest from dozens of other independent booksellers.

Google will not comment on how its negotiations with potential retail partners are going in Australia, but ebookish.com.au understands its launch here is imminent.