August 2, 2010 by Alexei M
Internet booksellers Amazon have announced that they will be launching a UK version of their own-brand e-reader, the Kindle, specifically for the British market. The new reader will feature an enhanced selection of texts for download, and will be available for purchase from the amazon.co.uk site.
Amazon have predicted that most books will be sold in digital formats over the coming years, and this will make e-readers the number one platform for customers purchasing novels online. The new UK Kindle will be available for £149, and offer 3G wireless connectivity powered by Vodafone to enable instant downloading of books. Users will be able to browse either online at Amazon, or through the Kindle itself, to choose books to download to the reader in a matter of seconds.
The UK book store for the Kindle will comprise of over twenty thousand texts, ranging from bestsellers by current popular authors such as Stephenie Meyer and John Grisham to classics which are available to download for free, as they are out of copyright. The UK version of the reader will be both smaller and lighter than its US counterpart. The pages on the reader will be more responsive, and it will feature twice as much storage capacity for books. The product will be launched at the end of August in the UK, with 400,000 books available for purchase.
The US version of the e-reader has been extremely popular since it went on sale in 2007. In an average month, Amazon will sell 100 ‘real’ hardcover books for every 180 downloaded to the US Kindle.
The vice president of the Kindle brand commented: “In coming years I do think that the majority of books sold will be digital. People prefer the reading experience; you have your library in your hands and can think of a book and download it 60 seconds later.”
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