Apple debuts iBook 'Quick Reads'

As an apparent reply to Amazon's "Kindle Singles," Apple Inc. is offering a "Quick Reads" section in its iBooks store. The section, like "Kindle Singles," cost from $0.99 to $4.99 - much cheaper than the regular iBooks, tech site TheNextWeb reported. Featured in the section are novellas (short stories) and essays covering various genres in fiction and non-fiction. Revenues and the uniqueness of some publication types appeared to be the main motivations for "Kindle Singles" and now "Quick Reads," TheNextWeb said. "Amazon saw the desire for quick, bite-sized pieces of information that is exemplified in the Twitter hashtag #longreads, which collates long-form articles that could be packaged into short book form and sold as ebooks. It filled this desire with the Kindle Singles offering," it said. It said a recent "Kindle Single" success was the 27,000-wprd Ars Technica review of Apple’s new OS X Lion operating system, which sold for $4.99. On the other hand, a second motivation for the new cheaper section is the fact that some publications like recipe collections may not be considered full books. "It will be interesting to see if the Quick Reads section turns into a permanent fixture, joining the main categories on the iBooks store," TheNextWeb said. — TJD, GMA News