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NIU Press launches e-book initiative

January 21, 2011

Beginning this month, every new book published by Northern Illinois University (NIU) Press will be sold as an e-book as well as a traditional printed book.

NIU Press e-books are available through Amazon’s Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble’s NOOKbook Store. The Press hopes to partner with Google Editions in the coming months.

“Although we remain committed to the printed book, we believe that e-book technology will allow us to better reach our readership and disseminate scholarship to as wide an audience as possible,” NIU Press Director J. Alex Schwartz said.

NIU Press graphic design associate Shaun Allshouse developed the Press’s e-book conversion technology in-house.

“Our e-books have the advantage of reflow, which means that the contents of our e-books will automatically resize to be easily read on whatever screen or device you like,” Allshouse said. “Most other university presses are using PDFs for their e-books, which cannot be used across as many different platforms.”

Books belonging to NIU Press’s Switchgrass Books imprint have been available as e-books since 2009.