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‘Lost Symbol’ and other Random House e-books now available in International Kindle Store
December 25, 2009 | 10:13 am
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By David Rothman
Edited Amazon news release:
Until now, Random House English-language books, such as Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, were only available to Kindle customers living in the United States. Now Amazon’s international is carrying Kindle Stores books published by all of Random House’s English-language publishing divisions.
These titles will be available in the Kindle Store for download in any area where Random House has the digital rights, such as the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The Random House titles join the Kindle Store’s constantly growing content catalog of English-language books, including New York Times Bestsellers and New Releases.
Other popular English-language titles that are now available to download in any area where those digital rights are available include Danielle Steel’s A Good Woman and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief.
Random House joins the over 1,000 different rights-holders that now have books available in the Kindle Store, including leading publishers Atlantic Books, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Faber, Hachette, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Lonely Planet, Penguin, Profile Books, Quercus, Simon & Schuster and Wiley.
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Comments:
I recently had the opportunity to query Sir Terry Pratchett’s agent, Mr Smythe, about geo-restrictions on ebooks. He thought they do not make any sense, and was continuously pushing the publishers to do something about it.
I can now see that Sir Terry’s ebooks appear in the European Kindle Store. They mostly retail at 7.99 USD in the American store, while the European / UK store has them at 12.42 USD. +4 USD more for VAT and wireless delivery? I think not. Also, the same titles in paperback from Amazon UK are priced at less than 5 GBP (less than 8 USD).
For some years, I have chosen to buy the paperback and then download a pirated ebook edition. Should publishers continue with these stupid price policies, they will soon go the same way as the dinosaurs.
So far though it seems this only applies to the Kindle Store. Why are RH still insisting on region restrictions for other ebook sellers like Fictionwise, etc.? Do they want Amazon to have no competition?
Great point, David, if it’s true. Is this another form of an Amazon “exclusive”? That’s a disaster in terms of reader choice.
I’d love to hear from people to see if international distribution of Random House e-books is only for the Kindle store.
I’ll check with Fictionwise.
Thanks,
David