Amazon Kindle Paperback Edition – is it time?
By Alexis • Jun 11th, 2010 • Category: eBook Readers, iPhone
- Photo: Amazon
Famous marketer and business thinker Seth Godin believes Amazon needs to release a ‘paperback’ Kindle e-reader, especially in the face of the growing competition from the iPad.
Price it to go
Godin’s thinking is Amazon needs to look at the current Amazon Kindle device as a hardback, and release a new, super cheap ‘paperback’ e-reader, too. This device, given a hypothetical price range of $50, would be priced to go and would get the Kindle lite, if you will, into millions of people’s hands.
He says, ‘the only way to get authors and publishers to embrace this device is to sell 20,000,000 of them’. The game, Godin argues, is to become the de facto platform for this form of reading, and adds that ‘the only way to create that footprint in the face of an iPad is to make it so cheap to buy’ that’s its irresistible.
Fragmented e-reader market
If not Amazon, perhaps Sony and its well-established e-reader can adopt this model. This paperback vs. hardback argument harks back to a topic we’ve covered quite a bit, recently, which questions the viability of the standalone ebooks reader as a device category moving forward. Some argue the ebooks reader will soon begin dying a very fast death, but pricing them to go may be a way to stabilise the market, particularly in the face of ‘now comparatively’ expensive tablet devices.
It’s no joke
- Photo: Apple
At Apple’s recent Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company announced the iPhone 4, Steve Jobs snuck in a fascinating tidbit. Apple’s iBooks platform now accounts for 22 per cent of the ebooks market, having sold over 5 million eBooks in the 65 days since the iPad’s release. This figure should scare the Amazon Kindle team a bunch, since Apple has no doubt taken some share from the online mega retailer. How to stem the tide? A new colour touchscreen ebooks reader is an option, as is going the opposite direction by stripping features and pricing to go. Godin may have a point.
Tags for this article: Amazon Kindle, Amazon Kindle PE, Apple iPad, e-reader, iphone 4
