Indigo to enter e-book fray

Indigo is planning on getting into the e-book arena with a new digital venture, one that consumers can access without owning a Kindle or a Sony Reader.

The new application, which is still in the pre-launch phase and has yet to be christened with an official name, will allow users to download small chunks of reading material – book chapters or articles or short stories – to their cell phones or BlackBerrys. According to Indigo, these “bite-sized” downloads – which will come from publishers all over the world – will either be free or will cost users a small fee. (Added revenue will come from advertising on the application’s website.)

There's been no official announcement yet, and the final details won’t be unveiled until December, with a hard launch planned for early in the new year. But Indigo’s chief technical officer Michael Serbinis has told Q&Q Omni that people will be able to download user-generated content as well, not just publisher-generated content. They will also have the option to purchase full-length e-books.

According to Serbinis, the application will be “device-agnostic” – in other words, anyone who can browse the Internet should be able to access it – but the initial target will be iPhone users, as well as people with other devices with similar capabilities – such as the T-Mobile G1, Nokia’s HDC, and the new Internet-ready phones by Sony Erickson.

In terms of what content will be available for download, Serbinis wasn’t able to go into specifics, but he did hint that the book-related material will skew toward bestsellers and topical titles. “It’s going to be an entertainment experience on your device and on the web, so that precludes certain categories,” he says. Serbinis could not say how much Canadian content might be available.

Part of the idea is to create a platform for new reading formats, such as the hugely popular cell-phone novels in Japan. “We want to be the destination for those runaway hits in the future – whether they’re subway novels or Twitter novels,” says Serbinis.

The new venture will be a fully owned subsidiary of Indigo, but it will be a distinct brand. It will also represent Indigo’s first retail venture to go outside the Canadian market, as it will be launched simultaneously in the U.S. “It will be a North American service initially,” says Serbinis, “but beyond that, [it will become] a service we can take globally.”

The venture will be unveiled to media – as well as to Indigo staff and “friends” – sometime in December.