Just in time for the Book Expo kicking off in New York this week, publishing giant Simon & Schuster said it plans to release all its books of Ernest Hemingway in digital format.

Starting in August, 23 Hemingway titles will be available for $9.99 per ebook, according to Simon & Schuster imprint Scribner, which has published the books for about 75 years.

The decision marks the first time that all the works of a major literary figure, including "The Old Man and The Sea", "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "A Farewell to Arms," are slated for digital distribution.

The decision to put the titles into electronic formats could be seen as a little step forward or a drop in the bucket for the nascent ebook industry, which still offers a tiny proportion of the world's major book titles in electronic format.

At the same time, the lower prices for ebooks compared to the printed version could be seen as a threat to publisher's margins or another source of revenue. The ebook price, for example, is about $5 below what the books usually sell for in print.

Still, everyone in the book industry agrees that the widest selection needs to be available in ebook format, a Simon & Schuster spokesman said.

So far, Simon & Schuster has made about 1,000 front list titles available in ebook format, not counting the back list Hemingway titles, from which it expects to collect incremental revenues at best.

In addition to publishing the Hemingway titles in all available ebook formats, Scribner said it would expand the academic market for using Hemingway in course work via electronic permissions. That move is perhaps the bigger strategy at play for the Viacom-owned publisher. By targeting the academic market where Hemingway's books are required reading, Simon & Schuster is positioning itself with a younger generation of book readers that might not be as attached to the printed page as prior generations.

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The email address for queries is hemingwaypermissions@simonandschuster.com. Over 75 million copies of Hemingway's books have been sold in printed form in over 35 languages throughout the world.

The decision to release the titles in digital format also comes as the publishing industry gathers in New York for the first time in 11 years for the annual Book Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center. Among the issues on the agenda this year: how to tackle the wispy state of the ebook marketplace.

To that end, the Electronic Publishing Industry, a trade group, is about to launch a marketing campaign to help promote ebook adoption. "Open an eBook...Discover New Worlds of Reading," (www.openanebook.org), will debut on Thursday, May 2nd, a day before the Expo officially kicks off.

If you haven't heard much about the campaign yet, you will. The "Open an eBook" campaign is launching with the support of Open eBook Forum members Microsoft Corporation, Adobe Systems, Random House, and McGraw-Hill.

"This is the grand re-opening of the eBook industry," said Open eBook Forum executive director Nicholas Bogaty. "We're launching this campaign to invite people to see just how satisfying it can be to carry titles on the New York Times Best-Seller list in their breast pocket or access new reading material from the comfort of their living room."