Amazon Releases Kindle for the Rest of the World; Pricing Raises Questions

When Amazon released their Kindle e-book reader, it was limited to purchase by those in the US, for several reasons: they had only made a deal with a US phone company to provide downloads, and, most likely, they hadn’t managed to get the issues of selling US digital books overseas worked out. Well, now the International Kindle is available for $279, plus shipping and duties (it’s shipped from the US), and users in 100 countries can purchase 250,000 English-language books, as well as magazines and newspapers from Amazon. For now, all purchasers are limited to purchasing Kindle books from the US store, but this is an improvement; up until now, you had to have a US account and address even to use Amazon’s Kindle app on the iPhone and iPod touch. Now, users of those devices, who are outsied the US, will have access to books as well.

I’ve written about using the Kindle app on my iPod touch here and here, and was very pleased with the experience. I’m very tempted by the Kindle itself, and there’s a good chance I’ll spring for one, though with all the rumors about Apple’s table coming out in the near future, I’m afraid that the Kindle wouldn’t get used for long. After all, if Apple’s tablet uses the iPhone OS – or something similar – the Kindle app will work on it, and my guess is that will be better than the Kindle device itself.

A couple of interesting points about this launch. All Kindle books have to be purchased through Amazon.com. Even customers of Amazon UK have to buy their books from the US store, though Amazon says it will be offering direct UK purchases soon. This makes me wonder how Amazon worked out licensing for books sold in both the US and UK. Sometimes these books are sold by different publishers, so I can imagine that UK publishers are unhappy about this, since they’ll be losing sales. (Though the Amazon web site says that, “Due to copyright restrictions, certain Kindle Titles are not available everywhere. Kindle Titles that are available in your country or region will be displayed.” Amazon touts a total of 350,000 books in the US, but only 250,000 internationally.) Also, no mention is made, on the French store, of future plans for French books. My guess is that Amazon is negotiating with publishers in major countries, but that these publisher will be very hesitant about selling their wares digitally.

Several points regarding pricing, however. First, Kindle books generally sell for $9.99 in the US; for International books – at least for European purchasers – this base price is $13.79. Second, a number of books are not available to me in Europe, that are on the best-seller list for US Kindle books: Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, Nicholas Sparks’ Last Song, books by Steig Larsson, and many more (these are just from the first page of the Kindle best-seller list from the US store). So we pay a $3.80 premium, plus there are lots of books we don’t get.

To be fair, this price includes VAT (in France, VAT on such things is a whopping 19.6%, though paper books are only taxed 5.5%), and shipping books from the US is more expensive, so the $13.79 price is still substantially cheaper than the equivalent hardcover with shipping (which doesn’t get taxed). But since shipping a digital book costs nearly nothing, this seems excessive. In addition, looking at the prices of a few paperbacks – Stephen King’s Dark Tower series – shows similar abusive prices. For a book that is $7.99 in the US (Dark Tower VII), Amazon is charging $11.49 for European users. Granted, the US dollar is quite weak these days, so the paperback for the same book costs about that much in Euros from Amazon’s French store, but it’s enough to make me think twice. (And it’s not the VAT that explains the difference. At the current exchange rate, VAT for something of that price would be $1.06.)

The pricing for newspapers is surprising as well. The New York Times, sold in the US to Kindle users for $13.99 a month, is $27.99 here in Europe. Even the International Herald Tribune, which is actually published in France, is more expensive here; $9.99 in the US compared to $19.99 for Europe. There’s no reason to charge twice as much for European customers; this is one of the whole points of the Internet: distance doesn’t matter. I thought newspapers were trying to survive; this is their big chance, and it looks like they’re going to blow it.

As far as magazines are concerned, there are only a total of 34 magazines available to European customers, though I have to admit that at $5.99 an issue, Asimov’s Science Fiction is a good deal (though it’s only $2.99 a month in the US). However, other magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly, cost double in Europe: $2.49 per issue compared to $1.25 in the US.

One final gripe: Kindle users in the US are very happy that many classics – ie, public domain books – are available for free from Amazon. These same books, here in Europe, are sold – yes, sold – for $2.30. With this device, US customers are going to also have to pay $1.99 for every download they make when “roaming” – ie, when outside the US – so this cost may be related. (US users who travel a lot internationally can purchase this model to have access to Kindle content when overseas.) Nevertheless, it seems a pretty high price to pay to download a file.

Speculation on the Internet suggests that this “roaming fee” is what Amazon is paying AT&T to use their worldwide network, rather than using individual cellphone networks in the countries where the device works. This could explain the difference in book prices I mentioned about. If I take the $9.99 base price for a book, add the $1.99 roaming fee and France’s 19.6% VAT, I come to $14.22, which is actually a bit higher than the $13.79 price for most books. While this may explain the cost of the books – and may explain why “free” books are not free – it seems ludicrous that buyers have to pay a “hidden” delivery fee for the book. You can actually download Kindle books to your computer then transfer them to the device by USB (which is the best bet for public domain books). Perhaps Amazon should offer a lower price for computer downloads, and only make people pay the full price if they actually do want wireless delivery.

I’m convinced that e-books are the future of books in general (they won’t supplant them, but will replace dead-tree books for many people), and am glad that Amazon has finally managed to get the Kindle out in other countries. But I do want to see an Apple tablet that will not only compete with the Kindle, but that will offer other, better features as well. There’s no reason to have an e-book reader that can only read e-books. And with Amazon’s pricing for those of us outside the US, I hesitate.

See an updated version of this article on TidBITS.

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