O’Reilly Media is reporting that they have 800 eBooks available through in the iBookstore, with a couple hundred more to come in the next few.

Andrew Savikas is the VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly Media, has more on his blog: “Ebooks are already a big part of our publishing business, and we know many are read on iOS devices. Having those ebooks available for sale in the iBookstore makes it even easier to find, buy, and read hundreds of O’Reilly and Microsoft Press titles on iOS devices. As always, there’s no DRM on ebooks sold by O’Reilly, so it’s easy to read the open-standard EPUB files purchased from the iBookstore on nearly any device with EPUB support.”

The O’Reilly titles on iBooks are currently only available in the U.S. and Canada, but they have plans to expand to every territory with an iBookstore.

The growth of the iPad is helping Kindle eBooks sales, according to new research from Cowen and Co.

The LA Times reports: “Turns out the iPad has actually helped Amazon. Not only are sales of the Kindle device expected to grow 140% this year to nearly 5 million units from 2009, but digital book sales via the Kindle store are on track to grow 195% to $701 million in 2010, according to Cowen and Co., which released a report Monday on the digital book market.”

Interestingly, according to the report, one in five people who buy eBooks from the Kindle store do not own a Kindle. The report also found that among readers who read more than 25 books a year, 44% prefer using Kindle on the iPad, while 47% prefer iBooks.

Vook, an eBook meets video format, has published a new Guns N’ Roses title out called Reckless Road: Guns N’ Roses And The Making Of Appetite For Destruction. Marc Canter, Slash’s best friend of 30 years, wrote the book along with author/filmmaker Jason Porath.

According to a promo video on the Vook site, “Reckless Road is a visual chronology of the first 50 gigs Guns n Roses played as a band.” The title includes audio from the early gigs and videos of GNR and their friends from the early days.

With tales of living hand to mouth on the streets and eating onions to survive, the release recounts how GNR was formed and got signed. “It’s not as glamorous as one might imagine, but I suppose it is what you make of it,” says Slash in the video.

The release is available on iTunes for both iPads and iPhones, as well as from the Vook site. A print version of the book came out in November of 2007.

A new wave of investors are betting on the future of the iBookstore. The digital distribution company LibreDigital will announce tomorrow that they have secured $8.1 million in funding from new investors at S3 Ventures and from current investors at Adams Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners.

Earlier this year, the company secured a coveted spot as an “Apple Approved eBook Aggregator” in the iPad iBookstore. In addition to the investors mentioned above, the company also has support from both HarperCollins Publishers and The New York Times Company. The company provides distribution for many platforms, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and Google Editions.

LibreDigital CEO Russell P. Reeder had this statement: “This year, sales of e-books are expected to double to more than $700 million in the U.S. alone … This funding will be used to accelerate the delivery of e-books, and expand our technology offerings to include new solutions that help publishers better promote and sell books to digital consumers.”

Now that we’ve all got our iPads and downloaded iBooks, it’s time to start building our libraries. As TUAW points out, however, the selection in iBooks is still rather limited and pricey, but Apple did do a decent job stocking the store with free books from sources like Project Gutenberg. TUAW wants to know what free eBooks readers are downloading from iBooks. If you’ve got some recommendations, click the link above and chime in. They’ve even listed a few of their favs to get your library started.

Here at eBookNewser, however, still maintain that other apps, like Kindle and Kobo, may ultimately end up being the way to read on iPad. So, before or after you’ve check out TUAW, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below about what other apps you’re using to read and what you’re reading on them.

Concerning the image above, don’t forget that those used to be called iBooks too.

So you’re a publisher and you want to get your eBooks into the iBookstore. How do you do it? LibreDigital is one offical way. Apple has named LibreDigital a Certified eBook Aggregator for the iBookstore. What’s that mean? LibreDigital is now the preferred pipeline for publishers to get their books onto the iPad. Look at LibreDigital’s site for more info.

LibreDigital was one of the first big players to handle conversion, warehousing and distribution for eBooks, so it’s not surprising that Apple should pick them. They already handle eBooks for many of the biggest publishers, including HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster.

While LibreDigital isn’t the only aggregator Apple is endorsing, this is a big coup for the company nonetheless.

As our sibling blog GalleyCat reported yesterday, Apple officially announced that it had sold 300,000 iPads on Saturday and “also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day,” according to a press release.

But, as AOL Daily Finance points out, all the free books in iBooks make this number misleading–note that Apple said “downloaded,” not “sold.” Here’s more from Daily Finance: “While 250,000 e-books downloaded may still sound like a big number (even with the freebies thrown in), all told it adds up to an average of less than one e-book per iPad. Looked at another way, a minimum of 50,000 iPads bought on Saturday–or 16.7% of all sold–do not have any downloaded e-books on them.” What are you weirdos doing with your iPads if you’re not reading?

GalleyCat readers also make this same observation in the comments to yesterday’s post: P. Bradley Rob notes this is an “[i]nteresting use of the word ‘sell.’ Really highlights the growing semantics debate regarding eBooks–are free downloads counted as sales?”

Apple is making the wait for iPad interesting, at least. You can spend the next 24 hours shopping for iPad apps. Most importantly, of course, is iBooks, which has just gone live in the App store. Get it now, while there’s not “line.”

Presumably, in addition to building even more buzz, Apple is trying to avoid a repeat of the fiasco at the iPhone 3G launch, when iTunes was so clogged with new users trying to download the same things that it ran like sludge for days.

Somebody want to take a stab at explaining this screenshot? Notice the category between “TV Shows” and the emusic playlist? It says “Books”! The shot is from this blogger’s iTunes, into which the official eBookNewser iPhone was plugged. This is iTunes 9.1, the new version that supports eBooks. While the books icon showed up under the iPhone, iTunes wouldn’t allow eBooks to be dragged and dropped onto the phone.

What do you all think? Is eBook support coming to iPhone soon too? Is this just a messup? Is iBooks for iPhone on the horizon?

The relentless Mike Cane has already noticed a glitch in the new iTunes update. As we reported earlier today, iTunes 9.1 accepts eBooks, but, as Cane noticed in the comments to our earlier post, the jacket art for some eBooks doesn’t come up once the eBook is imported into iTunes, and he’s delved deeper into the matter.

In a detailed blog post, Cane charts which kinds of eBook covers pop up and which don’t, as you can see in the image above from Cane’s blog, in which the yellow, green and purple eBooks come from Project Gutenberg, Munsey’s and Feedbooks respectively, and the red are from Smashwords, whose book jackets are apparently supported. He then wonders: “Why wasn’t this tested and prevented? Who at Apple has been neglecting eBooks?”

Apple, do you care about eBooks? Let’s hope you don’t bear out early fears that eBooks are an iPad afterthought.