Why We’re Building Readino (And Why It Matters)

Nikolay Pultsin//16th July 2025

For 20 years, I’ve been working on FBReader, our ebook reading app. It’s been used by millions of people across many platforms, and it’s taught me a lot about what readers want — and what the ebook world often fails to offer.

Now, we’re starting a new chapter: Readino, an independent ebook shop.

This isn’t a pivot or a reinvention. It’s the next step in something I’ve believed all along — that people should be able to read what they like, on the device they prefer, without being locked into someone else’s ecosystem.

Why now?

For a long time, building a truly open ebook store just wasn’t possible. The ebook market has been dominated by a few large platforms, and if you weren’t one of them, you couldn’t sell DRM-protected books — at least, not without forcing your customers into a closed system.

But now, open standards have changed the landscape. In particular:

Readium LCP allows for secure, user-friendly DRM that doesn’t lock readers to a single app or vendor.
OPDS 2.0 makes it possible to share and integrate book catalogues in a standard way — ideal for developers and platforms.

Thanks to these technologies, small teams like ours can finally take part in the ebook market in a fair and open way.

What is Readino?

Readino is a new ebook store built around the idea of openness:

You can use our app, FBReader, to read your books — or you can ignore it and use any LCP-compatible reader, like Thorium.
We use open protocols (OPDS 2.0) so that other reading apps can browse our catalogue and even integrate our store.
If you’re a developer, you’ll be able to earn a revenue share when users buy books through your reading app.

This isn’t just a shop. It’s an attempt to build a healthier, more reader-friendly ebook ecosystem.

How will it work?

Here’s what the basic experience looks like for a reader:

Browse and choose a book on our website, or directly in your reading app.
Pay securely via Stripe.
Download a small file called an LCP licence.
Open the LCP file in your reading app. That app then downloads the book (an ePub file) and you’re ready to read.

On first use, you may be asked to enter a passphrase, which you set in your Readino account.

What formats do we support?

At launch, Readino will offer:

ePub format only
Protected using Readium LCP DRM

PDF support might come later, but our initial focus is on ePub — it’s widely supported, flexible, and works beautifully across most modern reading systems.

Why use DRM at all?

I know the word “DRM” often triggers frustration — and for good reason. Traditional DRM schemes can be restrictive, buggy, or tightly locked to specific vendors.

But I believe Readium LCP is different. It is:

Open — Not owned by any single company
Lightweight — Doesn’t require an internet connection every time you open a book
Respectful — Still lets readers move books between devices and keep local copies

What about ownership?

Once you’ve purchased a book, it’s yours. You can:

Store the ePub file locally
Re-download your LCP file from your Readino account
Open the book offline, even if the distributor’s servers are down

And if Readino shuts down?

We hope to be around for a long time. But just in case: if we ever have to shut down the service, your books won’t disappear.

Readium LCP doesn’t depend on our servers to function. Your reading app will still open your books, and we’ll do our best to keep LCP files downloadable for as long as possible — with advance notice if anything changes.

Who is this for?

It’s for anyone who loves reading — especially those who value openness and independence. I sometimes say we’re dinosaurs in a fast-moving tech world — but dinosaurs who still believe in reading, ownership, and building tools that respect their users.

Who’s behind Readino?

The same small team that is behind FBReader. We’ve been working on ebook reading for almost two decades, always with the same goal: make reading easier, and give people more choice.

What’s next?

We’re aiming to open early access in September 2025, starting in the UK, with plans to expand into the EU shortly after.

Readino will evolve — and that depends on you as much as on us. Just like FBReader, Readino is open to ideas. While we won’t implement every suggestion (we’d like to keep things focused, not overloaded), your feedback will help shape our direction. If something matters to you, we’d love to hear about it.

In the next post, I’ll go into more detail: how account creation and purchasing will work, what the interface looks like, and how to follow or support the project.

Thanks for reading — it feels good to finally share this. If you care about books, about reading on your own terms, and about owning what you buy… I hope you’ll feel at home with Readino.