e-books for all ... Pages & Pages booksellers in Mosman is launching an e-book kiosk in its store.E-books for all ... Pages & Pages booksellers in Mosman is launching an e-book kiosk at its store. Photo: Marco Del Grande

THE e-book revolution has gathered pace with Sydney's independent bookstores introducing e-book kiosks from today and Dymocks announcing a partnership with Google to deliver e-books online.
The different digital ventures could add thousands of digital titles to retail shelves.
Whereas Amazon's Kindle, Collins's Kobo and Apple's iBookstore require dedicated devices to read e-books, the booksellers have opted to take on these giants with more ''egalitarian'' and portable platforms that enable e-books to be read on any computer, smartphone or tablet.
Pages & Pages in Mosman will be the first independent to install a kiosk using the ReadCloud platform and within two weeks Abbeys, Newtown's Better Read than Dead, Berkelouw and Shearers will follow. ReadCloud has distribution rights to 15,000 titles from publishers Harper Collins, John Wylie & Sons, Murdoch Books, Text Publishing and Scribe Publications and is in discussion with Random House.
Gleebooks will launch its instore and online e-book library via the Booki.sh platform from next week allowing book buyers to read their e-books on any device with a web browser.
''Readers want service and they trust their local bookshop more than a computer algorithm or paid for merchandising which you get from Amazon and Apple,'' Jon Page of Pages & Pages, said.
''The job of a bookseller is to put the right book in the right hands, and it's no different with e-books. This is about giving people choice.''
Dymocks's general manager of e-commerce, Michael Allara, said the Google partnership gave its customers access to the biggest internet depository of e-books with a similar portable ''cloud reading experience''. In turn Dymocks extended the reach of Google beyond its affiliation with the online bookstore Booktopia.
Unlike independent book retailers, however, Dymocks would not be installing in store kiosks in its 70-plus franchise stores. Dymocks stores will instead sell an e-book gift card enabling customers to purchase Google titles from the Dymocks website. Customers will accrue and cash in reward points when they buy e-books. The success of the e-book ventures will depend on how rapidly the independent booksellers can build their catalogues to match Google's and the extent to which local publishers will permit discounting of e-book versions. Some customers could permanently migrate to Google's dedicated retail site if customer relationships are not maintained.