Cyber venture puts books online

     By Lynn Collier
     View staff writer
      Tree huggers would love Brian Klais.
      Bookstores and bookshelf designers, however, may hate him.
      In 1997, the 25-year-old Wisconsin-born entrepreneur founded Novelon, a cyber book business in Henderson.
      More and more virtual bookstores are cropping up on the Internet selling e-books, which download into palm-sized battery-powered computers on the desktop's hard drive. Cyber ink and paper is far cheaper than the real thing.
      Klais has designed a system where his subscribers' purchases will be kept in their personal virtual library. For $4.95 a month the subscriber is able to read their selections over the Internet by using their library card identification number.
      For younger readers, who grow up staring at computer screens, the transition would likely be easy.
      "I hate flipping through a book to get information I need," said James Riddle, the company's 25-year-old special project engineer. "I'd rather read it off a screen."
      Still, sometimes only a real book will do.
      "I love curling up with a Piers Anthony novel," said Riddle, who grew up on computers. "There's no way I'm going to curl up with a computer."
      Currently, Novelon's Web site at www. novelon.com offers for purchase 10 Huntington Press books, which are mostly about gaming and Las Vegas history. Cyber copies are about 40 percent off the local publisher's retail prices.
      For example "The Frugal Gambler" costs $7.95 on Klais' site, but is $12.95 in bookstores. The cyber copy of "Madam -- Chronicles of a Nevada Cathouse" sells for $16.95 on the Web site compared to $24.95 in print.
      "We're the crash-test dummy," said Anthony Curtis, publisher of Huntington Press Inc., which has released 17 titles and has 14 more in production.
      Like many others in the publishing industry, Curtis wonders how easy it will be to change America's reading habits.
      Cyber reading is cheaper, but it's not the same.
      "I like paper," said the 41-year-old. "That will be the big battle. People want the feel of a book in their hand."
      They also like to display them for visitors.
      "I don't know if I'd want to buy a book and not be able to display it on my bookshelf," Curtis said.
      Still, he's willing to try the cyber option.
      "It's a test at this point," Curtis said. "He (Klais) has a unique idea. But who knows? A lot of things about the Internet are unknown. Are people going to want to buy and read books this way?"
      People in their early 20s have fewer hang-ups about paper and are used to getting their information online.
      "It will definitely be the Gen-Xers or the Gen-Yers or however many letters left in the alphabet that will start the change," Curtis said.
      In fact, Klais, who is still forming his top management staff, has few employees more than 30 years old.
      "We're the young rebels," he said from his small rented office at 701 N. Green Valley Parkway.
      Klais said he hopes to expand his book list by convincing large publishers to sell their books over the Internet. However, while the e-book industry is growing, many publishers remain hesitant.
      "They're concerned about copyright issues," he said. "They don't see the immediate market and don't know if anybody would buy the books."
      Still, Klais said it's the wave of the future, predicting schools will adopt the idea to provide cheaper textbooks for students. In fact, publishers have already begun to issue cyber textbooks.
      According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Academy Press released 1,700 books online in 1997. The company found that the electronic versions increased sales for their hard copies.
      Ultimately, Klais said he'd like to include computer animated educational books, music and magazines to his list of services.
      "It's something I have to do," he said. "I don't want to look back at things when I'm 60 and say, `I should have done that.' "