Giller prize winner goes digital with Kobo

Kobo

While not quite gadget related, I found this story to be a good example of the benefits of ebooks (and digital media in general). The Giller Prize, a Canadian literary award for fiction, was handed out to The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud yesterday. The book is printed by Gaspereau Press, a small five-person operation based in Nova Scotia. The book’s original printing run was only for 800 copies. They are now printing about 1,000 copies a week, pretty much their capacity, in an effort to meet demand due to first being shortlisted and now winning the prize. As you can imagine, the book could be in short supply across bookstores for some time. This is where digital media steps in to save the day.

Kobo has been selling the book in digital format since October 15th (along with the rest of the 2010 Giller Prize shortlist). It was today’s third best selling book on Kobobooks.com’s Top 50 list.

Score one for the ebooks…

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