Kindle Goes International

[Ralph]

From The New York Times:

October 7, 2009
New Amazon Kindle to Download Books Beyond U.S.
By BRAD STONE

Amazon’s Kindle electronic reading device is going global.

The company announced on Tuesday evening that it would soon begin selling a new version of the Kindle that can wirelessly download books both in the United States as well as in more than 100 other countries.

The move pits Amazon.com, based in Seattle, against a range of other players in the growing global market for digital reading. The rivals include iRex, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, the Dutch consumer electronics company; Sony; and China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier, which said last month it would soon begin selling several kinds of electronic reading devices.

The new Kindle is physically identical to Amazon’s current Kindle, with its slender profile, six-inch black-and-gray screen and angular keyboard. The main difference: it will use the wireless networks of AT&T and its international roaming partners, instead of Amazon’s existing wireless partner for the Kindle, Sprint. Sprint’s network is incompatible with most mobile networks outside of North America.

The new Kindle will sell for $279. It begins shipping on Oct. 19.

“We regularly ship millions of English-language books to non-English speaking countries and people have to wait for the delivery,” said Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive. “Now they can get books in 60 seconds. That is a pretty exciting part of what we are announcing.”

In addition, Amazon also announced a price cut for the United States-only Kindle, which will continue to be sold alongside the new global Kindle. The domestic Kindle is now $259, down from $299. Amazon previously dropped the price in July, from $359, to stimulate demand and to match the prices of rivals like Sony, whose least expensive e-reader now costs $199. Amazon also sells the larger-screen Kindle DX for $489.

International users of the new Kindle will have a slightly smaller collection of around 200,000 English-language books to choose from, and their catalogs will be tailored to the country they purchased the device in. Amazon said it would sell books from a range of publishers including Bloomsbury, Hachette, HarperCollins, Lonely Planet and Simon & Schuster.

Among the apparent holdouts: Random House, which is owned by Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate. Stuart Applebaum, a Random House spokesman, said the company’s “discussions with Amazon about this opportunity are ongoing, productive and private."

One challenge for publishers is navigating complex foreign rights issues: Books are often published by different companies and bear different prices in each country.

Though exact sales numbers are hard to come by, it appears electronic reading devices are having a breakout year. In a report being released on Wednesday by Forrester, the research firm revised its prediction for the industry, saying that three million e-reading devices would be sold in 2009, up from its previous estimate of two million.

Mr. Bezos declined to offer specific information about Kindle sales. But he said Kindle titles were now 48 percent of total book sales in instances where Amazon sold both a digital and physical copy of a book. That was up from 35 percent last May, an increase Mr. Bezos called “astonishing.”

“This has grown much faster than any of us ever anticipated,” Mr. Bezos said.

[nut-job]

Someone offered to get me a Kindle for Christmas, I think I will turn it down and get socks instead. Every time I get the notion to read a book on Kindle I check and find no Kindle version is available. (The latest book with no Kindle edition is "The Dark Lady of DNA.") Plus I'm not thrilled with the idea that I will need to maintain a working Kindle for the rest of my life to maintain access to the books I have bought the digital rights to. Aside from that, Kindle editions are not that cheap. They are less than a hardcover edition, but typically much more than a good quality used book.

[John F]

I don't care whether somebody in Germany or France can download American books there. What would matter to me is if I could download books from Germany and France, in the original languages. And I should think German and French readers would like that too. But as far as I can make out from this story, it's not going to happen - only books in English need apply.

[John F]

The geek video blog Techzilla includes a comparison of Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader, plus much else:

http://revision3.com/tekzilla/thanksgiving

[Dennis Spath]

Someone offered to get me a Kindle for Christmas, I think I will turn it down and get socks instead. Every time I get the notion to read a book on Kindle I check and find no Kindle version is available. (The latest book with no Kindle edition is "The Dark Lady of DNA.") Plus I'm not thrilled with the idea that I will need to maintain a working Kindle for the rest of my life to maintain access to the books I have bought the digital rights to. Aside from that, Kindle editions are not that cheap. They are less than a hardcover edition, but typically much more than a good quality used book.

I'm with you on this nut job. Perhaps it's my age and bifocals, but I have problems enough with sustaining concentration on text in a large computer monitor. Besides, when doing research I like the feel of a real paper volume and the ability to highlight/make notes in the margins since 98% of my interest is in history, biography, and economics, along with the social and physical sciences. And like you I get lots of books from "used" web outlets. My favorite source has been abe.com. When acquiring a book I've read from the library I can usually get it from Amazon @35% off list...AND free shipping since I've already had another on my "wish list".