The world of eBooks is rapidly developing. That development has been bringing a wide range of new eBook devices. While all of them are eBook readers, many of these devices have their own formatting and styles. It’s important to know the different platforms that your readers may be used when reading your work!
Kindle – The Kindle is one of the most popular eReaders on the market. It was released by Amazon in 2007 and has since developed and evolved in an incredible way. The Kindle supports Amazon’s proprietary format, AZW. Most people that own a Kindle are going to buy their books specifically from Amazon. The Kindle can also support .txt and PDF formats, but a large percentage of their bookmarking options are not available when reading in those formats. Amazon recently announced that their sales of eBooks have finally outstripped their sales of paperback novels.
Nook – The Nook is a product of the book retailer Barnes and Noble. They released the 
Nook in 2009. It is one of the most popular eReaders on the market along with the Kindle. There have been multiple models released since the first one in 2009. The Nook is based on an Android platform. The Nook only supports ePub, PDB, and PDF formats. Some of the newer models will support .doc and .html formatting as well. While the Nook is immensely popular, Barnes and Noble are separating from Nook Media, which will become an independent company by April 2015.
Kobo – The Kobo is another popular eReader, although lesser known than both the Kindle and Nook. Kobo 
readers were released in 2010 and marketed as a simpler version of eReader in comparison with its competitors. The Kobo is most popular in Canada, France, and Japan. The platform supports the largest variety of formats, from cbr to cbz, .docx to ePub, .html to PDF and .txt. The international popularity of this device is giving it increased market weight as the eBook market is expanding beyond the US and Canada. Kobo was recently acquired by a larger Japanese company and increased expansion around the world is expected.
Sony – Sony readers have been recently discontinued, however, there are a large number of people that still
own them. These readers were some of the most versatile of the eReading devices on the market. They support various formats including BroadBand eBooks, PDFs, JPEGs, RSS newsfeeds, and ePub format. These particular devices were overshadowed by the Kindle and Nook, but they are preferred by some. While Sony announced that it will no longer be making its eReaders, it has announced that it will be working on a Kindle app for android.
There are many other eReaders on the market, all with varying styles and all supporting different file formats. These are a sampling of the ebook devices that are popular at the moment. It’s important to keep in mind that some of the larger eBook companies have proprietary rights to the formats that they use, so you will need to go through their systems in order to have your book listed on their site.
