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Sparkle (0)
It's official. Oprah's favorite new gadget is Amazon's Kindle ebook reader. I've secretly been lusting after an ebook reader for awhile now, you know in that "if I had a money tree" kind of way. Let's be honest, at $359 the Kindle isn't cheap and even if I could buy a Kindle (it's still not available in Canada) like most people we're tightening our pocketbooks here. Will Oprah's Midas touch help the Kindle top bestseller lists this holiday season?
Megan McArdle wonders if world domination for the Kindle is far behind now that Oprah has endorsed it.
One of the reason people have been holding back is the same thing that kept people from buying Blu-Ray players--there are a lot of eBook Readers out there, and no one wants to commit to a device that will end up on the ashheap of history, leaving their eBook collection orphaned. That means waiting until one of the readers goes mass-market.
As important as Oprah's endorsement could be for the Kindle, it's even more important that customers are happy. And it's clear that people who love their Kindle really love their Kindle. Christina certainly loves hers and thinks that her Kindle has helped her save money.
You might think that’s an outrageous price to pay for an eBook reader (It has come down $40 since I bought mine, and is less expensive than the Sony Reader, their biggest competitor), but if you buy and read a lot of books, it will come close to paying for itself in a pretty short amount of time. Most of the books for the Kindle are $9.99, and as soon as they hit the stores, pretty much they hit the Kindle. I have probably 30 books on my Kindle right now, and assuming I have saved $7 on each one, that’s $210 in savings for me over 6 months. I have quite a few business books on there that retail for much higher than $17, so I am pretty sure I have saved more than that.
It sounds like the Kindle has great customer service. Yolospat had a problem with her screen and the next thing she knew they were overnighting her a replacement. The really nifty thing? The new Kindle recognized where she left off in the book she was reading!
Oprahs endorsement of the Kindle is about more than just the device. Jane at Dear Author weighs in on what Oprah's Kindle endorsement means for ebooks.
Mainstream publishing has a long way in adopting digital strategies that will avail itself of existing technology and a changing consumer and someone with the market influence of Oprah can go a long way in helping to push mainstream publishers into the new century of digitization.
Yep, the Kindle is tempting but it would be a lot more tempting if it cost a lot less. I think if Oprah had given the Kindle her love a year ago we would have seen them fly off the shelves. This time around I think that the price point is just too high to be a runaway hit when people are retrenching financially.
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
