If you didn’t pre-order your Nook, you won’t be seeing a holiday arrival. Barnes & Noble announced today that it had sold through the initial order and wouldn’t have more before the holidays are out.

“While we increased production based on the high consumer interest, we’ve sold out of our initial Nook allotment available for delivery before the holidays,” said a company statement. It’s not a huge delay – any order placed from today forward will be filled on January 4th. Anyone who pre-orders up to that date will receive a holiday certificate. Sometimes those are the best gifts. Right when you thought the festivities were over there’s a package on your doorstep.

B&N announced the delay after Sony did the same for its “Daily Edition” ereader yesterday. Despite the high price of ebooks and still limited functionality, ereaders seem to be one of the hottest items on the world’s gift list. Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle DX are both in stock and ship immediately.

Source: Reuters

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had fairly trusting parents as a kid. They were in touch, aware of the nuances of my youthful existence including my strongest likes and dislikes. The unfortunate side effect here was an exacting system of punishment should I stray too far from the path of reason. I spent plenty of time grounded, relegated to my room with a few cleaning projects and a stack of books to keep me busy. Even at my worst offense, though, my parents never considered taking the books away.

That’s exactly the type of punishment you’ll receive if you lose face in the eyes of Almighty Amazon. Get your account suspended and you lose the ability to manage your ebooks and worse, buy new ones. An Amazon user named Ian recently had his account suspended for too many returns and subsequently found his Kindle had been crippled. The ownership (or lack thereof) concerning Kindle titles and books for other electronic readers is old news, but this is the first we’ve seen a company dole out extraneous punishment for account-level offenses. Ian has since had his account reinstated but with one major caveat: screw up again and it’s no books for you!

Source: MobileRead