While the Kindle has long since become an international phenomenon with customers found all over the world, many people are surprised to find that there have been significant shortcomings to being a Kindle user outside of the US. Sure, the books are digital property and take a lot less time to ship than if you decided to import a sofa, but delivery time isn’t everything. Up until now, users in the UK have been forced to pay extra for all of their eBook purchases, simply for being outside the United States.
The launch of the Kindle Store UK is currently scheduled for August 27th, coinciding with the release of the new Kindle 3, though I’m told that Amazon(NASDAQ:AMZN) insists that it be called simply Kindle, and in preparation has begun selling the Kindle directly from the Amazon.uk site for the first time. This should mean no more import fees or expensive overseas delivery charges, if all goes well, as well as an end to any obnoxious side effects and hassles from the necessity of converting currency into dollars.
Apps are already being updated to incorporate this new development, with Android already rolling out and iOS being expected in the near future, so there need be no thoughts that this is beneficial to just eReader owners. As the platform localizes, UK readers can surely expect to see a larger selection(especially of native UK authors), better prices, and more attention to the region’s specific demands. If all goes well, it doesn’t seem unreasonable in the slightest to expect to see further nationalization of the Kindle platform across the international community. If anything, the fact that character support in the new Kindle software has been expanded would seem to hint that this is definitely on the books. This is exactly the sort of move that Amazon needed to further ensure that their eBook application becomes the default for the industry in the long term.
I look forward to seeing the UK version of Kindle Store. Amazon has promised lower prices than in any other eBook store over here, which sound encouraging – in fact, this is more important than eliminating the delivery cost associated with buying Kindle 2 in the UK (as long as the owner intends to purchase a fair number of books during the lifetime of the device). But as far as availability is concerned, I am not holding my breath. There root of the problem seems to be the copyright for a given jurisdiction. For example, Amazon currently offers several books by Umberto Eco to US-based Kindle owners but not a single Kindle book by him to UK-based customers; I doubt that this will change when the UK store is launched.
I look forward to seeing the UK version of Kindle Store. Amazon has promised lower prices than in any other eBook store over here, which sounds encouraging – in fact, this is more important than eliminating the delivery cost associated with buying Kindle 2 in the UK (as long as the owner intends to purchase a fair number of books during the lifetime of the device). But as far as availability is concerned, I am not holding my breath. The root of the problem seems to be the copyright for a given jurisdiction. For example, Amazon currently offers several books by Umberto Eco to US-based Kindle owners but not a single Kindle book by him to UK-based customers; I doubt that this will change when the UK store is launched.
i don’t care much for the UK store. but i hope it’s the start of more european kindle stores, no import fees and more books in different languages – yay!
The UK Kindle store went live today. I was pleasantly surprised by the prices of books there: they are pretty much the same as in the US Kindle store assuming the current exchange rate.
Just as I expected, availability has not improved – at least for books by non-UK authors. Taking Umberto Eco as an example, I could not buy his Kindle books listed in the US store for a device registered to an Amazon UK account, and those books are not to be found in the new UK store. I can, of course, get my Kindle temporarily registered to a relative’s Amazon US account and then download any book from the US store to it – so the whole set-up does not make logical sense to me. If the US Kindle store is considered a US-based point of sale for the rights purposes, why do I have to be prevented from buying a book for a UK-registered Kindle from it while a person sitting next to me, say, on a beach near Sydney can happily download that book from the same store to her US-registered Kindle? One possible explanation is that Kindle books are considered to be delivered to the address to which the account holder’s credit card is registered, but global wireless delivery renders this interpretation all but meaningless.
I’m waiting for the release of the DX in the UK, and will not buy until that happens … so please hurry up Amazon.co.uk.
Second, I am concerned about the copyright issues preventing the release of books to UK readers by authors from, say, the US. As another comment above implies, this really needs to be sorted out. No use in just giving US readers the best list of available titles … the EU is now a larger market than the US; whatever can Amazon be thinking?