Bookshops take to the clouds to keep up with the literary e-volution

Whereas Amazon's Kindle, Collins's Kobo and Apple's iBookstore require dedicated devices to read e-books, the booksellers have opted to take on these giants with more ''egalitarian'' and portable platforms that enable e-books to be read on any computer, smartphone or tablet.

''Readers want service and they trust their local bookshop more than a computer algorithm or paid for merchandising which you get from Amazon and Apple,'' Jon Page of Pages & Pages, said.

Dymocks's general manager of e-commerce, Michael Allara, said the Google partnership gave its clients access to the biggest internet depository of e-books with a similar portable ''cloud reading experience''. In turn Dymocks extended the reach of Google beyond its affiliation with the online bookstore Booktopia.