Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Kindle Receives 5,000 More Book Titles

Amazon's Kindle reader gets an infusion of book titles.

After announcing in April it replenished its supply of the Kindle eBook reader, Amazon announced the Simon & Schuster Inc. book publisher will release more than 5,000 additional titles for the popular eBook reader made by Amazon.

"This commitment from Simon & Schuster moves us closer to our vision for Kindle, which is to make any book, ever printed, in any language available in less than 60 seconds," said Amazon.com Founder & CEO Jeff Bezos.

The 5,000 additional titles will mean Kindle owners will have more than 125,000 total titles for download.

Using the device's built-in wireless ability, owners also have the ability to subscribe to select newspapers, blogs or magazines for monthly subscriptions. The EVDO connection also allows U.S. Kindle owners to purchase and download new book titles in about one minute.

Last month, Amazon announced it received a new supply of Kindles after quickly selling out during the 2007 holiday shopping season. The company has not released sales numbers of Kindle units shipped, or the number of eBooks sold through the site.

Amazon also dropped the retail price of the device from $399 down to $359.

The overall popularity of reading books in formats other than printed books remains sketchy, with a Random House/Zogby poll reporting 82 percent of readers polled claiming they prefer printed books over eBooks.

Bezos announced the retailer ran out of physical copies of "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," a book written by Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary. The site does have electronic copies of the book available for its customers, however.

"That's one of the great things about electronic books," Bezos said during the BookExpo America convention. "They don't go out of stock."

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