The biggest book seller on the face of the planet driving the revival of books and utilising its own in-house, custom made, technology in the process? It almost sounds too good to be true - and that may well be exactly how the Amazon marketing team feel when they look back at the Amazon Kindle reader's short, but hugely successful career to date. The Kindle is absolutely the ideal device for Amazon, with its strong public image in the fields of both books and electronics, to market.
In just the same manner that digital cameras and digital picture frames have been taking over from the old fashioned equivalent items, the future of reading seems likely to be digital. Right now, the e-reader is the hottest "must have" piece of personal electronic kit available on the market. Oprah Winfrey was an early adopter. As long ago as 2008 she pronounced that the Kindle reader was her "new favorite gadget" - and you can be sure that her huge audience was paying attention. The Amazon marketing men must have been over the moon.
They also got some great publicity when Stephen King wrote a special novella, Ur, to mark the launch of the Kindle 2 in February 2009. The world's biggest book seller, the world's best selling author and the latest hot gadget all combined in one huge publicity event. No wonder the Kindle reader is selling so well.
At the moment there is a long list of competitors trying to get their share of the market by launching their own e-book readers. Amazon and Sony, with a 60% and 35% share of the U.S. market respectively, are dominating at the moment. Deservedly so - after all they are the two companies who have developed the market. The Sony PRS reader launched in 2006 and Amazon's original Kindle was released in 2007. Both companies are now reaping the benefit of their innovation - the rest are, in all honesty, frantically trying to catch up.
Amazon has a huge selection of Kindle books available on their website. Over 400,000 titles to choose from right now - and more than 500 new titles are being added every day. Sony have partnered with Google to make the internet search giant's collection of electronic books available to PRS users. The good news is that, since electronic books don't use paper, ink or bindings, they tend to be cheaper than the traditional physical equivalent. You can even sample the first chapter of each Kindle book on Amazon's store - so you'll be much less likely to buy something that you don't enjoy.
E-books are also better for the environment - for the same reasons as listed above. Every year, the American magazine, newspaper and book sector requires 125 million trees to be felled in order to supply enough paper to feed our reading habits. Don't forget all the chemicals, ink and energy consumed in the manufacture of our traditional reading material - or the transport required to deliver the various books and magazines to the end user.
E-book readers are, very definitely, the wave of the future. Both Amazon and Sony have established themselves in the market - but prices will fall due to the influence of increased competition from other competitors. At the end of the day, customers are going to benefit from lower environmental impact, an improved buying and delivery method and lower prices.
Discover the Amazon Kindle reader for yourself and have a look at the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you customise your device.
Related Reading:
