Kindle Finally Ready For Global Distribution 145
geirnord writes "Previously a US-only device, the Amazon Kindle 2 is now finally available in an international edition. The new device is identical to the Kindle 2, with the exception of Edge and 3G support. That means Whispernet-like functionality over most of the world."
Reader pasm notes a report at The Guardian which points out higher ebook prices for international Kindle users. "When asked by the Guardian precisely how much downloads would cost, an Amazon.co.uk spokesman revealed that foreign customers — including those in Britain — would be paying $13.99 (£8.75) per book instead of the American price of $9.99 (£6.25). That amounts to a 40% premium for the same title." The spokesman said the higher prices reflected higher operating costs and VAT rates.
That's nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently bought a monitor for exactly double its price in the USA.
For commodity hardware, a rule of 1.5x the US price is quite accurate, but for those a little bit more rare, it goes all the way up to 2.5x. If the Kindle becomes available here (which I strongly doubt), I would fully expect a price of $550-600.
P.S. The VAT on books here is 0%.
Re:VAT on Books in Europe Trending Towards 0%-5% (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the real reason is, Europeans are used to taking it in the ass from electronics industries why not do that too? Yay +40% on anything that includes a chip for no reason... apparently on files now too.
Ironic that only DRM prevented this sooner (Score:3, Insightful)
Even regular folks think that ten bucks for an e-book is nonsense, and they are also starting to see how DRM reduces the value of an electronic purchase to essentially nil.
In the end, some Chinese company will come out with something technically similar with no strings attached, and they'll wipe the floor with Amazon if they don't improve on this silly strategy. I'd pay maybe a buck for an e-book, just for convenience sake--but not if you can yank it away from me at will.
might as well buy a netbook for that price (Score:3, Insightful)
Since it's already been out a year in this model (version 2), I have a sneaking suspicion that this ploy is merely to dump old stock (if Amazon can get anyone to buy it) before a new model is introduced.
It's not really ready (Score:4, Insightful)
Note that this "international edition" still has the same gimped fonts as the "U.S. edition", which basically only contains latin characters.
This seems very silly, given that the kindle actually seems perfectly capable of using a default font with much larger coverage: someone released a patch that changes the default kindle font to be Google's wide-coverage (e.g. including CJK characters) "DroidSansFallback" font! [blogkindle.com] (the page I linked to contains two patches, for two different fonts). It would have almost trivial for Amazon to do something similar (and they could have done a better job).
I don't know what Amazon is thinking, but this is a pretty pathetic attempt at an "international" kindle.
"I think the real reason is..." (Score:3, Insightful)
...that it is their product and they can set the price wherever the hell they want to. You don't have buy their stuff if you don't want to.
Re:"I think the real reason is..." (Score:3, Insightful)
VAT Directives (Score:5, Insightful)
The EU VAT policy directives specifically categorise ebooks and audio books as books, and thus *supposed* to be within the reduced VAT bands.
Amazon has a long history of basically ignoring EU law when it suits it. For example, Amazon.co.UK insisted for years on charging for VAT for books delivered to Ireland (when the UK still charged VAT). Did it refund that improperly charged VAT for Irish customers when it finally relented? No. See also: One-Click Patent. Amazon likes to borrow a lot of the oxygen about the freedom of information and open markets and the disincentivising quality of software patents, etc, but when it comes down to it, it's as aggressive and exclusionary and predatory as Apple or Microsoft.
Not for me! (Score:2, Insightful)
I live in Switzerland and I will not buy such a device.
The main reasons are:
- copy protection in Kindle (I usually pass on books that
I'm done with - if only to gain room for new books)
- reader way too expensive
- books way to expensive (paper still is a lot cheaper)
- can't highlight phrases / earmark pages / collect citations
- did I mention copy protection?
The ebook business will have to go a long way until they
get to the point where mp3 shops are today...
Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Kindle = way too much Amazon lock-in, control and DRM.
Just give me an e-book reader that supports standard formats, with no wireless or DRM please.
Re:VAT on Books in Europe Trending Towards 0%-5% (Score:3, Insightful)
The publisher puts the books into boxes and ships the box full of books (maybe 25 of them) for $10. That works out to be around $0.40 per book, delivered to the store.
You missed out the bit where the book store typically takes 30-40% of the cover price from the publisher, often on a sale or return basis. *That's* where all the money goes, and that's something that could change dramatically with digital distribution. Publishers who start selling ebooks can make money with dramatically lower prices. Those who can't, simply wont' survive - they are competing with other publishers, but also with all the self-publishers on the internet. You'll notice that the publishers who are selling lots of their own books as ebooks are able to price the ebook dramatically lower (PragProg, Oreilly, etc).
Guess what? Physical books aren't that expensive to distribute, and eBooks have almost identical costs.
The costs for ebooks are not the same as those for physical copies - it costs pennies (if that) in download/storage costs per copy per ebook, and reproduction/printing/distribution/storage of physical copies of a book costs a lot more than that. Where did you get your figure of $10 a box? You realise most books are printed in China (because it's cheaper) don't you? Storage and priority shipping also costs a lot of money if there are timing issues before a big launch. Even taking your figures at face value, 40c is far more than say 2c for a digital download of a 100Kb book. Over a lot of copies, that adds up to a lot of money saved - at a certain point an ebook is a pure money making vehicle, even if the price is rock bottom, as the download costs are negligible due to the small size, whereas physical books require reprints, restock, storage, etc. every time a new set of copies is made, which all costs money.
What does still cost money for ebooks, as you point out, is origination, and that's not going to change, though you might be surprised at how little of the cost of publishing is in production of the content - say half at the most.
More worrying for many big publishers, the equivalent of $1 popular classics are $0 already - available from project gutenberg - that market is already on the way out (repackaging older books), and where a few years ago we would have bought an Atlas for a road trip, a DIY book for a simple DIY task, and a cookery book for cooking - how many of us would first consult the internet now?
I suspect the internet will make large illustrated books completely redundant soon enough, and eventually a new artform will emerge which supersedes novels, based on the forms available today for written expression; just as novels were born from pamphlets and letters in the 18C.