Um, wrong way, guys.

RedGroup Retail, the Australian owner of Whitcoulls and the local iteration of Borders, has today launched New Zealand's first e-book tablet and its major e-book download store.

More than 300 of New Zealand’s most famous books have been submitted to be digitised and made available for ebook and smartphone customers, it was announced today.

Licensing has formed a venture to digitise the books. Copyright Licensing – a non profit copyright collective representing book publishers and authors – will be seeking rights from publishers and authors to digitise further works, which would be made available under licence to libraries, booksellers and the educational sector.
 

People snickered when Amazon first released its Kindle e-book tablet, which receives Kindle-formatted e-books, magazines and newspapers downloaded from Amazon.com via wi-fi or the cellular radio built into each reader.

Apple has reversed course, and made e-booker reading programme Eucalyptus available for download, for $US10, from its iTunes AppStore.

Eucalyptus caused controversy and was denied approval for sale on iTunes on Friday, flagged by a previewer as ‘adult’ and ‘objectionable’ because it allows an iPhone or iTouch user to browse the Project Gutenburg database of 20,000 free e-books, including such ‘sexually suggestive’ titles as the Karma Sutra.

Chief executive Jeff Bezos unveiled a slimmer, talking version of Amazon's e-book reader this morning - plus a plan to make every book ever printed, in any language, available for Kindle download within 60 seconds.