Media Release

Victoria University Press
23 August 2010

A little less conversation, a little more action…

While others are talking themselves hoarse, Victoria University Press and mebooks.co.nz have quietly been going about publishing some ebooks. They’ve been joined by VicBooks, who are leading the way for independent booksellers.

For ebooks to become established in New Zealand doesn’t require a tipping-point event such as the entry of a big international player or a sexy new device. This is a process that has been happening gradually for more than 20 years, and the barriers to entry, and costs, are now low.

We released four books in July, and a further 10 this week. They are a mixture of New Zealand history, novels, short stories and poetry. We have not restricted ourselves to obvious bestsellers, but have chosen a diverse range of books in order to test the interest from different parts of the community.

Most of the books are available throughout the world, but some carry territorial restrictions, such as The Vintner’s Luck, which is available only in New Zealand.

Forthcoming novels Gifted by Patrick Evans, The Collector’s Dream by Pierre Furlan and Their Faces Were Shining by Tim Wilson will be published simultaneously as print books and ebooks.

The nature of the internet means that it is as easy, quick and safe to buy an ebook from mebooks.co.nz as it is from a major retailer, and VUP’s ebooks are available in both industry standard ePub format, which works on most readers, and mobi, which works on Amazon’s Kindle.

Useful information on ebook readers and reading ebooks on your computer can be found by clicking the ‘ebook readers’ banner at the lower left of every mebooks.co.nz page.

At present VUP’s ebooks are available directly not only from mebooks.co.nz, also via vicbooks.co.nz or victoria.ac.nz/vup. In time they will be available from other retailers as well.