Canadian bookseller giant Indigo Books and Music has launched its answer to Amazon.com's Kindle book reader. Shortcovers is a software-based reader for smartphones and today became available on the BlackBerry Storm, Curve, and Bold, the Apple iPhone and the Google Android.

The Shortcovers library of available ebooks benefits from Indigo's longstanding relationship with top publishers—giving consumers a deep and broad range of content.

Thousands of current titles are available through the service. How many titles? 50,000 books, chapters, news, magazine articles, short stories, blog posts and more.

After reading a first chapter for free -- same as on a Kindle -- you can purchase a whole book or continue to buy it one chapter at a time.