Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
09-03-13, 08:51 AM
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Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Amazon is introducing BookMatch.
From http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/ama...ough-its-site/
From http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/03/ama...ough-its-site/
Amazon announced a new program today called Kindle MatchBook, which offers digital versions of print books purchased through its online bookstore to customers for between free and $2.99, depending on the title. The program covers book purchases ranging back to 1995, when it first started selling books to customers online.
Kindle’s MatchBook program will have over 10,000 qualifying titles to begin with when it starts up in October, and the company plans to roll out more over time. Publisher partners are responsible for enrolling books in the MatchBook program, and setting a price (free, $0.99, $1.99 or $2.99) at which their customers can also download the Kindle version of the title to their Kindle app for dedicated Kindle hardware.
If you logged onto your CompuServe account during the Clinton administration and bought a book like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus from Amazon, Kindle MatchBook now makes it possible for that purchase—18 years later—to be added to your Kindle library at a very low cost,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content in an admittedly pretty hilarious quote from the press release announcing the news.
In addition to major publishers, any authors and imprints using the Kindle Direct Publishing can enroll today so as to make their catalog available to buyers at program launch. Amazon is pushing this not only as a great value-add service for users, who’ll get a portable digital version of their book in addition to the print copy, but also as a way for publishers to get renewed revenue out of a previous sale – making it possible for someone who bought a book up to 8 years ago over again, who might otherwise have been happy to settle for just owning the paper copy could be a source of considerable additional windfall revenue for bookmakers.
Of course, for end users, free books would probably be the ideal choice (why buy again what you already own?) but it’s still a great convenience feature that will probably convince more than a few shoppers to upgrade favorite selections from their home library. As an avid reader myself, my only regret is not having used Amazon to buy more books in the past. Going forward, if I want a paper copy, I know where I’ll turn, and that’s probably exactly what Amazon’s looking to accomplish with this move.
Kindle’s MatchBook program will have over 10,000 qualifying titles to begin with when it starts up in October, and the company plans to roll out more over time. Publisher partners are responsible for enrolling books in the MatchBook program, and setting a price (free, $0.99, $1.99 or $2.99) at which their customers can also download the Kindle version of the title to their Kindle app for dedicated Kindle hardware.
If you logged onto your CompuServe account during the Clinton administration and bought a book like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus from Amazon, Kindle MatchBook now makes it possible for that purchase—18 years later—to be added to your Kindle library at a very low cost,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content in an admittedly pretty hilarious quote from the press release announcing the news.
In addition to major publishers, any authors and imprints using the Kindle Direct Publishing can enroll today so as to make their catalog available to buyers at program launch. Amazon is pushing this not only as a great value-add service for users, who’ll get a portable digital version of their book in addition to the print copy, but also as a way for publishers to get renewed revenue out of a previous sale – making it possible for someone who bought a book up to 8 years ago over again, who might otherwise have been happy to settle for just owning the paper copy could be a source of considerable additional windfall revenue for bookmakers.
Of course, for end users, free books would probably be the ideal choice (why buy again what you already own?) but it’s still a great convenience feature that will probably convince more than a few shoppers to upgrade favorite selections from their home library. As an avid reader myself, my only regret is not having used Amazon to buy more books in the past. Going forward, if I want a paper copy, I know where I’ll turn, and that’s probably exactly what Amazon’s looking to accomplish with this move.
09-03-13, 03:32 PM
#3
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
So will it be one upgrade price for everyone, or will publishers be able to charge previous book purchasers a fee for the ebook, while giving it for free with new book purchases?
09-03-13, 05:34 PM
#4
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Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Yeah, I got an e-mail from Amazon about this today and went ahead and enrolled all of my Kindle Books which are also out as print editions. I decided to give most of them for free. I figure if people spend money on the print edition, they deserve to have the Kindle edition too. Especially considering that one of my photo books sells for around $65, those folks really deserve to get the Kindle edition for free.
What I am wondering about is, say if somebody buys my print edition book from Barnes & Noble, for example, are they also somehow entitled to the discounted or free Kindle Edition? Has Amazon thought about this? Of course their Print on Demand Publishing arm is still making money from my book, regardless of whether it's purchased through Amazon or through another source - that other source has to order the book from CreateSpace.
What I am wondering about is, say if somebody buys my print edition book from Barnes & Noble, for example, are they also somehow entitled to the discounted or free Kindle Edition? Has Amazon thought about this? Of course their Print on Demand Publishing arm is still making money from my book, regardless of whether it's purchased through Amazon or through another source - that other source has to order the book from CreateSpace.
09-03-13, 05:51 PM
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Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
I think it's just one price and only going forward, but I don't remember them explicitly mentioning that in the materials. The ebook version of my political thriller is priced at $3.99, so I set it to be offered for .99 to anyone who buys the paperback.
09-03-13, 07:51 PM
#6
DVD Talk Legend
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
I'm betting the deal only works on books bought on the Amazon website, regardless of whether Amazon also publishes the book. For one, other stores aren't likely to share customer info, for another Amazon doesn't want to share Kindle info. Also, if an author charges a fee for the ebook upgrade, then Amazon has to have a way to charge the customer for that.
09-03-13, 09:07 PM
#7
Banned by request
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Why on earth would they do that? The point of the program is to get people to buy print books through Amazon, and also to keep them locked in to the Kindle ecosystem. Why would they reward people for taking their business elsewhere? If I bought 10 vinyl records from my local record store, would you expect Amazon to give me free MP3s as part of their auto rip program?
09-03-13, 11:02 PM
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Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Why on earth would they do that? The point of the program is to get people to buy print books through Amazon, and also to keep them locked in to the Kindle ecosystem. Why would they reward people for taking their business elsewhere? If I bought 10 vinyl records from my local record store, would you expect Amazon to give me free MP3s as part of their auto rip program?
09-04-13, 12:28 AM
#9
Banned by request
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Amazon is rewarding the customers who order products through them. The fact that they might still make money off a purchase from another vendor is immaterial. A purchase from B&N means that the customer is going to B&N to get their books, not Amazon, which means they might also be going to other places for other products instead of Amazon. The more people they drive to Amazon, the more they get them looking at a whole variety of products. For all of those reasons, it's not in Amazon's interest to offer free or discounted ebooks to people who bought those books somewhere else.
09-04-13, 01:56 AM
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Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Aside from what I can accomplish on my laptop, I don't have any kind of an e-reader - primarily because I don't relish the prospect of having to replace something that is broken/obsolete 12 montsh down the line in order to read any e-books that I've purchased.
This said, I was tempted for the first time this year and suspect that I may "bite the bullet" during 2014 when I shall be travelling a little more than is usual.
UK economics being what they are, I suspect that the US Amazon model of free to $2-99 will translate as £1 to £2-99 (or more) over here.
If they offer e-versions of all the books I've purchased since way back for that £1 figure I may well bite. Free would be better (as I already paid) but I think one pound sterling is about my limit.
Sadly I have many, many books that I didn't buy at Amazon or which I bought through their marketplace new (or occasionally second-hand).
<small>All of which reminds me that I was thinking of starting an "unread books" thread so that all we book-hoarding "junkies" could shame ourselves into catching-up in public...</small>
This said, I was tempted for the first time this year and suspect that I may "bite the bullet" during 2014 when I shall be travelling a little more than is usual.
UK economics being what they are, I suspect that the US Amazon model of free to $2-99 will translate as £1 to £2-99 (or more) over here.
If they offer e-versions of all the books I've purchased since way back for that £1 figure I may well bite. Free would be better (as I already paid) but I think one pound sterling is about my limit.
Sadly I have many, many books that I didn't buy at Amazon or which I bought through their marketplace new (or occasionally second-hand).
<small>All of which reminds me that I was thinking of starting an "unread books" thread so that all we book-hoarding "junkies" could shame ourselves into catching-up in public...</small>
09-04-13, 02:19 AM
#11
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
Why on earth would they do that? The point of the program is to get people to buy print books through Amazon, and also to keep them locked in to the Kindle ecosystem. Why would they reward people for taking their business elsewhere? If I bought 10 vinyl records from my local record store, would you expect Amazon to give me free MP3s as part of their auto rip program?
The one thing that would prevent Amazon from handing out free/discounted Kindle books to purchases that aren't verified through Amazon is because they have no way of knowing that you actually own the book in question unless you could snap a picture of the barcode, but even though they have no way of knowing that you actually bought the book and it isn't just a friend's copy or a used book purchased from a reseller.
Amazon only gives out "autorip" music to those who bought new copies from Amazon proper and not marketplace sellers.
I would love to able to get kindle copies of every book I own, but I really don't see it happening.
09-04-13, 02:55 AM
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Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
I'd also like to be able to include my US purchases and anything I bought from CDNow (and that other place Amazon.com swallowed up) but I can't really see that happening. For one I've probably forgotten all my old sign-ins and I doubt that Amazon retains archives of the purchase information for those subsumed companies to facilitate an address search or whatever for verification.
Turning back to books, methinks the only way they could arrange for e-copies of everything owned would be for people to take their physical collections down to (say) a warehouse to prove ownership and have them all stamped with something indelible so that they couldn't be handed over for someone else to get an e-copy.
For simplicity, maybe authors and publishing companies would allow the latest owner to benefit under such circumstances - although that wouldn't prevent someone getting an e-version by having purchased at Amazon and then for a subsequent owner who bought it from said Amazon customer at a later date heading down to that mythical verification warehouse... Hmmm...
Someone recently postulated that e-versions of anything might not be owned in the future so much as we would instead buy an annual (or monthly, or lifetime) licence to have access to this or that musical, literary, visual (or whatever) resource.
In such a world, maybe you would buy the rights to store an e-version of some/all the works of a particular writer or publishing house for a defined period of time.
Whatever happens I am sure that it'll be a field day for the lawyers, hackers etc.
09-05-13, 05:28 AM
#15
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
I think its a cool idea even though I have no idea what books I've bought since 1995...I'm too lazy to go through my order history, haha.
Right now I am more interested in seeing how much Kindle credit I get from the Apple/DOJ e-book settlement. I bought quite a few books listed as "price set by publisher" during that fiasco.
Right now I am more interested in seeing how much Kindle credit I get from the Apple/DOJ e-book settlement. I bought quite a few books listed as "price set by publisher" during that fiasco.
11-28-13, 11:12 AM
#16
Challenge Guru & Comic Nerd
Re: Kindle BookMatch coming in October 2013
I only had two titles in my list, one from a purchase today. I buy a fair amount of books on Amazon, but I think 99% of them are from marketplace sellers.
