According to The Bookseller, Xavier Garambois, CEO of Amazon France, said in an interview that ebooks should be priced 30% to 40% lower than print books. If this doesn’t happen the market won’t take off.
In the interview in Le Figaro he also said:
He acknowledged that the company had slashed e-book prices in the US to launch the market, with the result that it was “switching very clearly” over from print to digital. This was also due to the extensive variety of titles and devices available, he said. American publishers have been scanning their catalogues for five to six years, so that 750,000 titles are available on the Kindle. The advance is much less significant elsewhere, and probably cannot even be quantified in percentage terms in France. The market here “is just at the beginning,” he said.
The article goes on to say that the Kindle will not be turned into a multimedia device and that Amazon wants it to remain a reader.
The article notes: “The article goes on to say that the Kindle will not be turned into a multimedia device and that Amazon wants it to remain a reader.”
Yes, but a reader of what? Right now the best features of the Kindle are confined to books I buy from Amazon. Two major examples:
1. I’ve tried to proof my Amazon-bound books on my Kindle but can’t synch the notes or bookmarks to the Kindle app on any other platform.
2. I’d like to read my Instapaper articles on my Kindle’s marvelous screen, but I can’t always have my Kindle with me and synching what I’ve read with my iPhone isn’t possible. The Kindle is getting apps and that is good, but where’s the full-featured Instapaper app?