Sony’s Ebook Store Swells to 600,000 Titles Thanks To Google

A half-million classic books will be added to the Sony ebook store thanks to Google. A deal was announced Wednesday night that Google will be partnering with Sony by providing them with mostly books that were published before 1923. These are books whose copyrights have expired.

According to Sony, the collection of books added to their library will include some well-known classics such as “The Awakening,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” and “Sense and Sensibility.” It will also include lesser-known classics as well as titles in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other languages.

With this deal the Sony ebook store will now have around 600,000 compared to Amazon’s Kindle Store which has roughly 250,000 titles. While this may seem like the Sony Reader and the selection of titles has taken a huge leap over the Amazon Kindle, think again.

The bulk of the titles available at the Kindle Store are today’s best sellers and other modern, well-known titles. In addition, the Kindle Store has a growing list of today’s popular newspapers and magazines – not to mention a number of blogs.

By contrast, if you strip away this deal with Google, the Sony ebook store really only has 100,000 titles of modern titles with no access to newspapers or magazines. Unless you are an avid reader of pre-1923 classics, this deal does very little to help boost the availability of content on the Sony Reader.

Source: CNET News