Barnes & Noble Inc. said Monday that its Nook electronic reader will only be released in-store early 2010 as its still trying to fulfill the orders its already received.

Customers can only try out demonstration models at the Barnes & Noble stores.

Analyst find that the delay will not hurt Nook's market share in a big way, but it may loose some customers now to rivals like Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader and Sony's Daily Edition.

You'll have some people thinking the Nook is the ideal holiday gift but they might look at a Kindle instead, said James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research.

McQuivey added that the Nook's unique features and loyal customers may keep them waiting for the release instead of turning to a competitor.

A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble said the delays were a result of high customer demand.

For all the pre-orders, we have a commitment to customers to fulfill those orders on a first-come, first-served basis so we decided to hold off providing inventory to the stores until after the holidays, spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said.

Keating declined to say how many pre-orders the company had received or how many have been delivered.

Kindle