If you’ve visited the home page of Amazon.com anytime in the past several months, it’s hard not to notice its big house ad for the Kindle (and now the Kindle 2). And I don’t blame them. Amazon is an amazing company that could probably sell just about anything. (As a writer, I am grateful they started out with books.) With the Kindle, not only does Amazon have the opportunity to sell something of its own creation, which means bigger profit margins; but it also pushes customers to keep coming back for more — books in electronic form — from which Amazon again can take a cut.
If you admire business models like the computer-printer model (cheap printer reliant on expensive cartridge refills) or the cartridge razor (cheap or even free razors reliant on expensive cartridge refills), you’ve got to like the Kindle. It costs $359 upfront, with limitless refills. And, although Amazon is famously quiet about releasing sales figures, the consensus is that the Kindle has been a big success, at least as far as electronic readers go.
So I was surprised to see that the Kindle isn’t available on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.ca. Wouldn’t British and Canadian readers be as eager for the Kindle as Americans?
On a per capita basis, our book has sold better in the U.K. than in the U.S., which is pretty remarkable considering that it’s an American book and that we’ve had far, far less media exposure in the U.K. than in the U.S. This one tiny data point is an indication of the larger truth that there are more readers per capita in general in the U.K. than here; and they like their electronic gadgets, too.
We contacted Amazon to ask why the Kindle hasn’t been exported, but haven’t heard anything back yet. In the meantime, I found the following explanation on Askville.com, which is an Amazon company:
Sorry, no, the Kindle is only sold in the US, and is only able to be used, as far as downloading new reading material, in the U.S. It’s is [sic] based on wireless telephone technology and the signals aren’t transmitted outside the U.S. You can use/read the Kindle anywhere in the world, of course, but getting new material and the initial purchase would not be possible.
That may be an explanation but, from a business standpoint, perhaps not a compelling reason. So, paging all our British and Canadian readers: how keen would you be to buy the Kindle if it were offered?
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I’m an avid Amazon customer, reader, books lover and Kindle user.
I’m in Wyoming. I can’t use the signal to buy titles seamlessly and yet it didn’t stop me from being one of the first Kindle buyers and users. I LOVE the Kindle even though I have to connect my kindle to drag the purchased ebooks over, which takes less than 1 minute to transfer 5 books…
It’s a huge lost opportunity, for both readers in the UK and for Amazon.
Trust me, and take it from this Wyoming (out on the frontier Kindle lover)!
Shelli
twitter: yellowstoneshel
I’m in Canada and would love the ability to purchase and use the Kindle. It’s exactly the platform I’d make the jump to reading electronic books for. If they came out with a version in Canada that didn’t even use the Cellular networks but you loaded books/newspapers etc via USB connection I’d be all over it. But yes it would be even better if I could connect remotely via wireless or cell service and get live blog or news updates.
Why only Brittish and Canadian readers? I live in Israel. A friend and I were just discussing the other day that we would love to purchase a Kindle if only we’d be able to download new material locally. I assume (hope!) that that will come soon.
there are much better book readers out there IMHO.
I would never buy Kindle with all its limitations.
How keen would I be to buy the Kindle? As keen as Americans probably would be to buy a BlackBerry if that was only sold in Canada (where it was invented). But that won’t make it happen.
I would also be keen to have Tivo, Target, and Chicago deep dish pizza in Toronto but the Canadian market is either ignored or restricted by American companies. Tivo took years before it was officially offered for sale in Canada, and once they did offer it they did not include an HD version (which raises another question — why would Tivo develop its HD model to only work with “cable cards” which are only available in the U.S.?)
As a transplanted American living in Canada, it is a bit hard to understand why so many of the consumer products available in the U.S. take so long to cross the border (the iPhone, satellite radio, Tivo, and now the Kindle are some prominent examples). The common explanation has to do with Canada being a bilingual nation and making the products in question compatible in both official language, but I have my doubts about that.
Um, and their factories can only produce so many Kindles at a time so as long as they can sell as many as they can produce they don’t have an immediate need to solve the logistical problems of an international Kindle launch… yet.
Don’t worry though. They will. If anything is certain it is that where there is demand, supply will go to meet it. I’m sure they are working out a device with the correct wireless hardware and deals with international wireless providers so that the Kindle will be brought to market soon enough.
My money is on the book distribution rights being most of the problem. The publishing industry is stuck in the stone age when it comes to digital distribution:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/02/the-once-and-future-e-book.ars
Every other ebook retailer is selling at the publisher’s prices (mostly the same price as the dead tree version for new books) so, odds are, amazon is selling those $9.99 new-release ebooks at a loss.
Take away whispernet and instant, 24-7, access to any book amazon sells and the kindle becomes indistinguishable from (if not worse than) every other e-ink gadget out there.
As a Canadian I have long awaited a Kindle available in Canada. Amazon claims that it can’t work here because of the wireless technology that it uses. That makes sense, but why not offer a kindle that connects to your home wireless network with WiFi that would then allow you to purchase books from amazon online? I don’t see why the kindle has to use its own proprietary Whispernet technology when any internet connection would do.