Is the $79 Kindle e-reader a revolutionary moment for the publishing world?

If I only wanted a Kindle for reading I'd agree with you, but as a kindle that plays movies, And stores some data in the cloud (minimizing the need for external/massive amount of internal memory) and access to the thousands of android apps on the amazon market it's a pretty nice package.

Pretty sure there's an audio jack on the bottom next to the power/standby button... They're promoting access to Amazon's video library.
No. You are thinking of the $199 Kindle Fire, which is really a tablet, not an e-reader.
The $79 Kindle that this thread is about cannot play movies and does not have the audio jack!
 
No. You are thinking of the $199 Kindle Fire, which is really a tablet, not an e-reader.
The $79 Kindle that this thread is about cannot play movies and does not have the audio jack!

Agreed. I was referring to the sub$100 Kindle (and even the $99 Kindle Touch is a great price, and I think, one that will open it to the masses).

The Fire is a different device and price point all-together.
 
Yeah, not sure why I thought you were talking about the Fire. Guess I just don't think about the other Kindles that much, wife saw the new Kindles, loves her own, wants a Fire.

My point was that the price-point for the Kindle, between $79 and $99 truly has the potential of expanding e-books to the masses, the Fire looks interesting (although having owned a 7" tablet already, I am NOT really excited about the form factor for that type of use), it will be interesting to see how they do.
 
I was thinking about getting my 8 year old son one of the new $79 Kindles for Christmas. As he is a reading machinie. He reads a full book every day or two.

But in checking out the kids book selection for the Kindle there really are not many books available for kids. He likes books like the Big Nate and 39 Clues series.

I think Amazon is missing out on a big market here by not offering many of the popular kids book in Kindle format.
 
I think most kids will want colorful pictures! ;)

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Discussed elsewhere, but amazon reports selling one million Kindle devices, of all favors, each week. Pretty much what I expected when I started this thread. I'd argue we are seeing the tipping point in e-books as a result. And since you can walk into a brick and mortar store to buy them, even more powerful in terms of effecting the revolution. While the Fire is a tablet to boot, it is designed as an excellent indoor e-book reader.

I wonder what the impact of all of this will be in a year. The sad thing is the greed of the publishers, sticking to twentieth century pricing structures when the supply chain and manufacturing costs are being dramatically reduced, but they still want to charge paper and cloth prices for virtual products.

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Yes, the publishers are having fits trying to get pricing that makes them money and makes sense to the buying public.

In the meantime, we as consumers can look at the independent book sellers. I've been reading nearly all free or very cheap ebooks for quite some time now. Much of it is new fiction by totally unknown writers independently putting their first works out there to try and gin up a market without using the publishers. Some very good reads, and some very bad ones too... :)
 
lparsons21 said:
Yes, the publishers are having fits trying to get pricing that makes them money and makes sense to the buying public.

In the meantime, we as consumers can look at the independent book sellers. I've been reading nearly all free or very cheap ebooks for quite some time now. Much of it is new fiction by totally unknown writers independently putting their first works out there to try and gin up a market without using the publishers. Some very good reads, and some very bad ones too... :)

The independent authors are definitely a mixed bag. I have found some gems, and some losers. But for .$99, not a big deal.

The publishers could make even more money if they would cease to be greedy and acknowledge the paradigm shift. $16 e-books just tick me off.

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rockymtnhigh said:
I'd argue we are seeing the tipping point in e-books as a result.
I wonder what the impact of all of this will be in a year.
I agree! Three things happened just in the past few months that made a huge difference:
1. The new sub-$100 e-readers became available and sold everywhere.
2. Library books became available for Kindle, and
3. Borders has closed its stores (I wonder for how long Barnes and Noble will stay around?)

The printing industry is over. I think several years from now very few books will be printed at all.
And a lot of trees will be saved! ;)

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The printing industry is over. I think several years from now very few books will be printed at all.
And a lot of trees will be saved! ;)

And history has the potential to be changed at the will of the content owner. Scares the heck out of me.
 
I use an iPad for most reading, and also own an early model Nook. The Nook mostly just gathers dust, not because it isn't great, but because it is just easier to stay on one box.

I like the iPad, and would probably like one of the Android tablets too, because I can use different readers that get me access to different sources easily. If I were looking today for a reader only, it would most likely be either the Nook color or Kindle Fire because of that flexibility.
 
The publishers could make even more money if they would cease to be greedy and acknowledge the paradigm shift. $16 e-books just tick me off.

I've stopped buying e-books at that price point for the most part. The publishers should not expect to get the same $ for an e-book and a physical book. The prices come down eventually when the paperback is released.

I look forward to the outcome of the lawsuits starting up on e-book price fixing. That arrangement smelled from the beginning.
 
I look forward to the outcome of the lawsuits starting up on e-book price fixing.
That will be settled in short order.
Watch for fine print in newspapers between Xmas and new year...:)

But the publishers (hopefully) understand by now that with the number of smartphone/tablets still in explosive growth territory,
the ebook business is under threat to be Napster-ized. People download GB-sized movies so MPAA is screaming bloody murder.
Downloading a 10MB PUB file will be practically undetectable.

I wouldn't be surprised if it were too late for the publishers to smarten up...

Diogen.
 
I don't think printed books will entirely go away; and if they do, that makes me sad. And certainly the 1984 scenario bothers me. I don't like content being able to change at a whim. That has been a problem with the web for sure.

As far as the higher price point; I have succumbed to it only two or three times; most recently for 11-22-63, but it will be interesting to see what happens with the litigation.
 

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