U.K. e-reader company to offer free public-domain books online through Google partnership

Coolerbooks.com to get 1M books from Google scans

SAN FRANCISCO — Interead, a British company that sells the COOL-ER e-book reader, is adding more than 1 million free public-domain books to its online bookstore. The texts are available from Google Inc. through its book-scanning project.

Interead has been selling its $249 entry to the still small but fast-growing e-book reader market since May. Its online store, Coolerbooks.com, has been offering about 330,000 books for sale in different formats.

Interead competitor Sony Corp. also offers a million free books at its eBook Store from Google Books, along with 100,000 other titles. Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Store, which houses books that can be downloaded to its Kindle reader, includes about 350,000 titles.