I just ordered the International Kindle
I just ordered an International Kindle and boy am I looking forward to it. There has been some discussion going on about the prices for Books in the USA and for example here in Germany. Just read this on the Guardian.
Then comes our Chancellor talking about book scanning and digital books. Seems like she does not believe that eBooks will ever replace real books.
As there is too much to say to both these points to put them on Twitter I am blogging again ;)
Number 1: Hell digital books will put a huge dent into print books. Of course there will still be printed books but they will go the way of vinyl, even though not as drastically and in a longer timeframe. Just listen to Amazon saying that for books that are available digitally and in print, almost 50% of sales are digital! Thinking that the digital revolution will stop at print is nuts.
Number 2: Prices are cheaper in the USA. Yes, they are. It’s $9.99 for a NYT best seller. Amazon already stated in the country specific information that e.g. for Germany you pay $11.99 to $13.99 per book, which cheaper ones being available. The thing is that the extra charges might seem steep but you know what? For Germany it is still very cheap. It is actually what is touched upon in the article on RWW above: We have fixed book prices here, and I will have to buy my digital books in the USA for the Kindle, where this is not the case and hence they are way cheaper. This will turn out to be interesting ;)
So yes, I think they are adding a bit much to the price of the books, but it still makes the books cheap by German standard. You need to remember that they are launching this in 100 countries though AT&T and AT&T is not in Germany. What AT&T does have is so called roaming agreements which are normally really expensive. Hence, downloading a book is more expensive. The added benefit from this comes to us in point Number 3.
Number 3: I can use the Kindle anywhere. Boarding a flight to London, download a few samples, buy the book when in London before flying back. All possible, with no price changes, as this is already prices in through global roaming fees. Just think about the changes coming with that. You no longer need to decide which books to buy before holiday and which to take with you. You load up samples wherever you are, buy whenever you want, and thinking about news papers … they come to your Kindle no matter which country you are in!!!
This thing will sell like hot-cakes and change the way you consume news and books. Period.
So here again is my affiliate link ;) Buy the Kindle International Version!
P.S.: I am not even talking about the social aspects that are surely coming to the device soon.