Random House to digitize more books

With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy market, Random House Inc. was expected to announce today that it was making thousands of additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse" children's series.

Random House Chief Executive Markus Dohle said that "more people every day are enjoying reading in the electronic format, and Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books."

The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The newest e-books are expected to be online within months.

Matt Shatz, Random House's vice president for digital operations, said e-book sales had increased by triple-digit percentages this year, thanks in part to Amazon.com's Kindle reader. He wouldn't divulge any numbers.

E-books are a tiny part of the overall market, estimated in the industry at 1% or less.