Barnes & Noble falls short on Nook shipments

Barnes & Noble may miss out on the lucrative Christmas market

Book retailer and publisher Barnes & Noble is having trouble meeting demand for its recently unveiled Nook e-book reader.

The company said that the initial crop of Nook units had already been sold through pre-orders, and that the next shipment will not arrive until after Christmas.

Barnes & Noble told reporters that all orders placed prior to 19 November will ship at the end of the month. Orders placed after that date will not ship until 4 January.

A shortage of Nooks could be welcome news to competing vendors as the holiday shopping season kicks off. The device was poised to compete in an increasingly crowded market currently headed by Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader.

Barnes & Noble had hoped to compete with Amazon and Sony when it unveiled the Nook last month. The tablet is based on the Google Android operating system, and features a 6in e-ink screen for text and a smaller touch screen display for browsing.