Josh Smith Online

(Kindle default font)

Newsweek has a long and informational interview with Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com. In the interview Bezos reveals new information about pricing, confirms features and explains the benefits of digital to authors.

Pricing: The Great News

“Amazon prices Kindle editions of New York Times best sellers and new releases in hardback at $9.99. The first chapter of almost any book is available as a free sample.”

New releases for $10 and older books for $2, brilliant.

The overarching goal of Amazon and Kindle seems to be set to deliver a large back catalog of books in the near future at affordable prices.

Features:

Nothing really new from the leaked specs but the confirmation of EVDO from Sprint is confirmed as is a battery life of 30 hours. I hope that the EVDO service doesn’t require a contract and huge monthly fee from Sprint to use.

Benefits to Writers:

For argument’s sake, let’s say cutting the price in half will double a book’s sales—given that the royalty check would be the same, wouldn’t an author prefer twice the number of readers? When I posed the question to best-selling novelist James Patterson, who was given an early look at the Kindle, he said that if the royalty fee were the same, he’d take the readers. (He’s also a believer that the Kindle will succeed: “The baby boomers have a love affair with paper,” he says. “But the next-gen people, in their 20s and below, do everything on a screen.”)

Overall I still think $400 for the Kindle is too much.  I hope that Amazon will allow users to purchase these books for Windows Mobile devices and the iPhone.

Reinventing the Book - Newsweek

Tags: amazon | ebook | jeff bezos | kindle | Pricing