Q. Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Google seem to be the big mainstream sources for e-books now, but are there any independent bookstores online, with files that work on smartphones and tablets?

A. While you can find independent authors selling their works on sites like Smashwords, most locally owned or regional booksellers do not have their own online catalog of commercial e-books to buy and download. Sites like Inktera and Zola Books sell e-books, though, and some independent brick-and-mortar booksellers have partnerships with the bigger e-bookstores.

Image When you sign up for an account with the Kobo app, you can link it to your preferred independent bookstore.

For example, Kobo, which sells its own Kobo Reader line of e-readers, has deals with a large number of independent bookstores around the country. When you buy a Kobo Reader from that physical store and create an online Kobo account there, that bookstore will get a share of money from each e-book you buy online from the Kobo Store.