Barnes and Noble Nook E-Book Readers Sold Out Before Release

Not long after Sony stated that it wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand for its Daily Edition e-readers, Barnes and Noble, the world's largest seller of books, made a similar announcement concerning its Nook e-book readers. According to the book distributor, even though the official release date hasn't even arrived yet, all copies of the product have already been pre-ordered.

Although Barnes and Noble supposedly increased production as much as it could according to the customers' interest, it still wasn't able to cope with the high number of pre-launch orders. This means two things: Nook is the best selling product of the company, but it won't be in time for Christmas.

“Nook continues to be the fastest-selling product at Barnes & Noble, and pre-orders have continued to exceed our expectations. While we increased production based on the high consumer interest, we have sold out of our initial nook allotment available for delivery before the holidays. We are committed to providing timely updates to our customers on expected nook availability and will do so through in-store, online and our direct-to-customer communications throughout the holiday season,” a statement by the company published on its eReading blog reads.

Unfortunately for those who ordered the Nook from Friday onwards, the product will only be available for shipment starting with the week of January 4th. As a consolation, gift givers will be issued a free-of-charge holiday certificate that will note a January shipping date.

“All customers ordering a nook beginning today, November 20 should expect their devices to ship beginning the week of January 4, 2010. To assist those customers who are purchasing nooks as holiday gifts, we have created a special holiday certificate, noting an expected January ship date. Beginning today, any customer pre-ordering nook as a gift will have the option to receive a special certificate at no cost -- either in-store or via mail, for those pre-ordering online” the statement says.

2009 saw a spectacular increase in e-reader sales, although Gartner seems to think that 2010 will be the watershed in the e-book market, ultimately seeing an e-book reader mania for the holiday season.