The Naked and the Dead and Invisible Man are among iconic novels heading for Kindle electronic readers after a deal between Amazon.com and The Wylie Agency.

Works by Norman Mailer, Ralph Ellison, and other influential authors made digital debuts on Thursday exclusively at the online Kindle Store, Amazon and Wylie said in a joint release.

"As the market for e-books grows, it will be important for readers to have access in e-book format to the best contemporary literature the world has to offer," said Andrew Wylie, president of the agency's Odyssey Editions.

"This publishing program is designed to address that need."

The 20 books Wylie is publishing for Kindle in digital format include Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, and Spanish work Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges.

"Our goal with Kindle is to make every book, ever published, in print or out of print, available in less than 60 seconds," said vice president of Kindle content Russ Grandinetti.

"We're excited to let our customers read books like Rabbit Run for the first time ever electronically."

Readers can download the books from the Kindle Store for $9.99 and read them on devices ranging from Amazon's e-reader to iPhones, computers and Android-based gadgets.

The announcement came as Kindle faces increasing pressure in a market that Amazon pioneered and dominated until Apple launched its hot-selling iPad computer tablets in April.

Apple this week credited the iPad and the latest generation iPhone with propelling its profit to a new high in the fiscal quarter that ended June 26.

The Cupertino, California-based company said its net profit rose 78 per cent to $3.25 billion in the quarter, during which it sold 3.27 million iPads.