Brown Book Loft Blog

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.

Just as digital cameras and digital photo frames have gradually replaced the traditional equivalents, the new way of reading is going to be digital. The e-book reader is the latest hot gadget. When Oprah Winfrey advised that her Kindle was her “favorite new gadget” you can be sure that all of her viewers paid attention. Amazon’s marketing men must have been doing cartwheels.

Amazon got yet further great publicity during the launch of the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009. Novelist Stephen King wrote a special Kindle themed novella – “Ur” – to commemorate the occasion. The world’s bestselling author, the world’s largest book seller and the world’s hottest new gadget all came together to produce one massive publicity event. It’s hardly surprising that the Kindle is selling so well is it?

There’s no shortage of competing manufacturers trying to get in on the act by releasing e-book readers of their own right now. However, Amazon and Sony are the two dominant market forces at the moment. Amazon have a 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market, Sony are in second place with a 35% share. It’s only fair – these two companies have done more to develop the e-book reader market than most of the competition. Sony released their PRS reader in 2006 and November 2007 saw the launch of the original Kindle. Sony and Amazon are now benefiting from their earlier innovation and drive in a big way.

There’s a huge choice of Kindle books available on the Amazon website. More than 400,000 titles are on offer right now, with over 500 new books being added on a daily basis. Sony has struck a deal with Google so that they can make the search engine giant’s library of electronic books available to Sony customers. Since electronic books don’t consume paper, ink or binding materials, they tend to be somewhat cheaper than the conventional printed equivalent. The first chapter of Kindle books can be downloaded as a free sample – so you can even try before you buy.

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.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle reader for yourself and have a look at the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you customise your device.