Kindle eBooks Spotted at Amazon
By Jane • Oct 3rd, 2007 • Category: Publishing News • •
The rumors of the Amazon Kindle are reaching a fevered state (okay, maybe only in my mind) but I was thrilled for some reason when I read at Engadget that Kindle ebooks were showing up as “other formats”. I did a quick search and sure enough, every book that I know off that is in e format has a corresponding Kindle Book format at Amazon. The prices are lovely too. All the paperbacks that I saw (even some of the overpriced penguin ones) were 20% off the cover price, although Lover Unbound was said to have a retail ebook price of $9.99. Bah Penguin.
Penguin’s anthology, An Enchanted Season (with a contribution from one of my favorite authors, Nalini Singh), was $9.99 which represents a 29% savings off the cover price of $14.00.
The Kindle format is supposed to be Mobipocket so it will be interesting to see if Kindle books purchased at Amazon are indeed useable on any device that can read a Mobipocket ebook. If so, price and convenience might drive people to purchase from Amazon.
Engadget is speculating that the appearances of the Kindle format at Amazon mean that October 15 could indeed be the release date. For some reason I keep hoping that the horrid pictures we saw of the Kindle previously will not be the final retail unit, that instead it will be this glorious gorgeous thing that will make me run to pull out my credit card and order the device. I want to be wowwed, Amazon. You know books, now let’s see how well you know readers.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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Wow, that is one seriously ugly piece of equipment.
And it will read only Mobipocket, is that right? Will it have a backlight? Wasn’t it supposed to be hideously expensive?
The rumors about pricing have been wildly different but I think the NYT article pegged it at $400. I think that is way too high and am hoping for something else. Someone suggested Amazon might subsidize it through a subscription plan. We’ll see. I noticed that the pricing has disappeared from the site, though. I guess that was a computer snafu.
Oh, boy, have I been out of the loop on this one! The Kindle edition on the listing for my books says they’re print editions!
Now, I know they’re not.Thanks much.
Bonnie Edwards
For an ereader, it has an overlarge keyboard…and no details about backlight. I suppose it must be e-ink? The price is outrageous. I still don’t get why it has taken so long to come out with a good ereader at any price. Right size, weight, light, text size and screen colour, ease of downloads and variety of formats or conversion ability, high memory capacity without worry of losing data, long battery life…is this so difficult to configure?
If the reader does use e-ink, which apparently doesn’t allow backlighting (someone correct me if I’m wrong), a detachable light that fits on the side or on top should be included with the reader. I’m anal about my gadgets having similar designs, so I don’t want to buy a clip-on light that clashes with the reader and cannot be stored neatly together.
The New York Times put the Kindle’s price at $400 to $500. At that price, it’s going to have to squeeze my morning orange juice and recharge my batteries for me to buy one.
Although, knowing Amazon’s tendency to provide price supports, I’m guessing they’ll have an “introductory” price to encourage purchase.
[...] Mobipocket. I wondered when the first Kindle pricing showed up at Amazon whether it would be a Mobipocket version that every device that could read mobipocket could read or [...]