Waterstone’s has announced that it will launch its own e-reader to compete with Amazon’s Kindle next year. James Daunt announced the move on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours. The rise of ebooks, and the selling of physical books online, has given bricks-and-mortar bookshops the same problems that iTunes gave high street CD-sellers. The bookselling business is undergoing dramatic restructuring. Borders has gone. Books etc has gone. Inevitably Waterstone’s is struggling to keep up with Amazon.

An internet milestone was passed this week, as a 60 year writer from Louisville, Kentucky who does not have a publishing contract passed the one million sales mark on Kindle. In a sign that the publishing industry could be going the same way as the music industry, John Locke has achieved this exceptional feat. He attributes his success to spotting a gap in the market with the arrival of the new electronic book format. He decided that he would undercut successful authors by selling his own efforts for 99 cents each.