First Glimpse of the iPad Bookstore

By Jason Boog 

ibooks.jpgPublishing folk around the country are wondering what the iPad bookstore will look like, with a mix of excitement and apprehension. Based on a new report, the iBooks store will have a sprawling network of categories for iPad readership–a shopping experience beyond the App Store’s simple interface.

Forbes explored a report by Busted Loop about the inner workings of the iBooks platform. Here’s more from the article: “[It’s] a highly organized approach to bookselling. Apple has designated about 20 ‘top-level’ categories for books, including ‘Fiction & Literature’, ‘Reference,’ ‘Romance,’ ‘Cookbooks’ and ‘Comics & Graphic Novels.’ Below those categories lie more than 150 sub-categories, including some very specific genres, such as ‘Manga’ under ‘Comics & Graphic Novels,’ ‘Special Ingredients’ under ‘Cookbooks,’ and ‘Etiquette’ under ‘Reference.'”

In addition, there will be extensive subcategories, according to the report. The “Sports and Outdoors” contains 15 different kinds of labels, while “Fiction & Literature” will have 13 subcategories.