The Digital Publishing Forum launched recently with an aim to move New Zealand’s most popular cultural pursuit into the digital age.

At the moment there are only a few options in the US for people seriously looking into reading published works on an electronic book. The Amazon Kindle was launched in late 2007 to a lot of fanfare, and Sony’s Reader has recently came into the market as well.

Martin Taylor, Forum Director, discusses that one of the ideas behind the formation of the Digital Publishing Forum is to encourage companies such as Amazon to make their ebook devices available in the New Zealand market;

“New Zealand already has a substantial book export industry with up to 20% of its turnover coming from exports, much of this in educational markets. The digital opportunities can greatly expand this.”

Digital publishing has been going on for some time already from New Zealand, although the majority of the work is commercial in nature, and published as PDF documents available online through your PC. The new readers being developed attempt to closely mimic the feel of reading an actual book, and are of course closely linked (particularly with the Kindle and Amazon) to the opportunity to buy many more ebooks through a connected service.