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Amazon Finally Bundles Ebooks With Printed Books
nk497 writes "Amazon is bundling ebooks with print copies for the first time, via its Kindle MatchBook programme, admitting that 'bundling print and digital has been one of the most requested features from customers.' The digital copies won't all be free — as with AutoRip, which offers free MP3s for selected CDs and records — but Amazon promises to charge no more than $3 per digital copy. The programme will apply to books bought as far back as Amazon's 1995 launch. So far, only 10,000 books are listed as being part of Kindle MatchBook, but Amazon hopes to add more, telling publishers it 'adds a new revenue stream.'"
Amazon has now stated that an ebook should sell for $3. After all, if it had the same value as the dead tree version it wouldn't be priced so low.
Fortunately, Amazon is not alone on the online books market. Other companies (eg some publishers) sell books online along with a free PDF. This is why competition has to be kept alive, and Amazon should not be the only choice when it comes to purchasing books, movies or music.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
If there's automatic matching for even a percentage of the books Amazon has sold, I suspect my Kindle is going to explode. I don't want to think of how many books I've purchased from them over the years.
Also, is this going to apply to second-hand/used purchases? Hm.
When I can buy an ebook for the same price as a used copy of an actual book, we'll talk. Until then, I'm not falling for it.
Please do this with textbooks!
Yes, because I want to buy a 1 pound paper wrapper for my ebook. By the time the publishing industry figures out how to adapt to technology it will be too late.
I have several series in hardback that I'd like to continue with. But since I travel a lot, kindle is more convenient.
I would say I couldn't be happier about this, but I want this extended to audiobooks.
Only they do it with multiple ebook formats.
Best Slashdot Co
I had no idea I would take to ebooks so vociferously. I checked my Amazon account recently and was astounded that I have over 200 titles in there that I've picked up (some free, many at the .99-1.99 range) over the years. I still buy dead trees (mostly programming references.. I have yet to embrace electronic documentation in full), but I did notice that Manning (?.. the ... In Action books) seems to include an ebook code in all of their print books.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
BitLit.ca is doing exactly the same type of bundling but it's platform agnostic - it works for any book regardless of where it was purchased.
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This should keep me from scanning, OCRing and formatting books I bought off of Amazon just for the convienance of reading on an eReader. I was just so annoyed that print copies cost less than digital copies.
There's definitely some titles sitting in a box somewhere I'd love to have the ebook for now that I've moved most of my reading to it (outside the out of print stuff they haven't deemed worthy of ebookness yet).
I've been pretty pleased with the AudioRip stuff on amazon - in a few cases its actually been cheaper (with Prime) to get the CD instead of the digital album (or maybe $0.50 difference). True that it starts out in the "cloud player" but its been easy enough to file the resulting files off to my home storage solution instead of doing the rips myself.
A lot of the Baen hardcovers come packaged with CDs that contain multiple ebooks. If you buy a hardcover copy of, say, Mission of Honor, of the long-running Honor Harrington series, the packaged CD contains the *entire* series in multiple formats.
Long after I started switching to eBooks, my wishlist still had print titles on it and I continued to receive them as gifts from friends and family that know I read a lot. I wonder if this will apply to those books that were purchased off my wishlist directly.
Of course they will only work on Kindle, since that's what Amazon sells. But that's easy enough to get around :)
I get all my Ebook versions of dead trees that Iown for free from TPB, and will continue to do so as I refuse to allow DRM on my books.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Hey Chapters/Indigo,
Retail bookstores need to do this. If they can get the pricing right, they might actually get my business back
I really wanted to get one of my friends into the "Planetary" series of comic books. I made the decision to buy them all for the Kindle. I'm not about to lend out my Kindle. Now I can lend out the hardcopy for someone to check out.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Matchbook is a great solution for print books purchased from Amazon... but what about all the books you buy at B&N, Chapters (Canada), your local indie bookseller, the used bookshop around the corner, or that you received as gifts? A Canadian start-up called BitLit (www.bitlit.ca) has developed a solution for print and eBook bundling no matter where you got the print copy. (Full disclosure, I'm one of the founders of BitLit). Simply write your name on the book's copyright page, submit a photo using the BitLit app, and download your free (or discounted) eBook. BitLit is set to launch on Android at the end of the month with select publishers. Feedback on the idea is most welcome.
I would suggest an addition service be added to this program: I would like amazon to hold my physical copy of the book and send them to me should the ebook ever become unavailable to me.
I wonder how they will deal with buying books for gifts. If I bought a physical copy of a book and gave it as a gift to someone else, would I get a free/cheap Kindle copy to keep for myself?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am Italian,and I always read books written in English in the original language. Over the years, I think I bought the "S" in Bezos. As soon as Ebooks came out, I thought about ways to get the books I bought in paper version electronically, and I expected Amazon to offer something like that.
After all, they know every book I bought off them over the years, and that I own a Kindle. It does not strike me as such a big insight to offer me, for a fee, my whole library in E-book form.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
I've seen this kind of figure quoted, but I don't think it passes a sanity check:
- physical retail stores want/have to double wholesale prices to cover rent, staff, etc
- half of books printed are pulped
so just accounting for these two effects a $10 physical book in a store should cost $5.00 wholesale - 0.50 for it's print cost - 0.50 for the print cost of it's pulped 'twin' = $4.00 and then I"m sure there would be other effects.
I'm pretty sure this 5-10% figure is bunk, used by the publishers to make high ebook prices seem reasonable. It would be great to see a detailed analysis of the supply chain and costs. Even if it's 'true' it's used to imply a $10 book's ebook price 'should' be $9 but from the above we can see it would be at most $4
Done. I've already set up my books to give the eBook away for free when you buy the paperback.
So that means y'all should rush out and grab my paperbacks to get the free eBook, right? ;)
(P.S.: Just in case you're ready to take me up on that, http://amazon.com/author/thomasaknight is where they're at.)
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
So you expect Amazon to sell you the ebook at wholesale? Why would you expect that from a retailer?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Do they exist on computers (Linux, Windows and Mac OS X?) for those who do not have Kindle hardwares?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
First I thought that it's nice, maybe they have some of the books I bought if the go back to the days of Amazon starting. Then I checked and I haven't bought any books since before 2006. I know that because the only entry in my order history the last years is from 2006, and it was some CDs.
All books I have bought have been using other email accounts, accounts I no longer have access to, or even remember. So no ebooks for me.
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
there is a nice little FAQ on submitting book reviews, but, how do we do it? I mean.. the machanics of it? Submitting a Story isn't submitting a book review, What am I missing?