Kindle Store

The New Yorker subscribed on a Kindle Keyboard

The Kindle Store is an online e-book store operated by Amazon.com as part of its retail website and can be accessed from any Amazon Kindle or Kindle Fire device. At the launch of the Kindle in November 2007, the store had more than 88,000 digital titles available.[1] This number increased to more than 275,000 by late 2008, and exceeded 500,000 in by the middle of 2010. In July 2011, there were more than 765,000 e-books available.[2] In July 2014, there were over 2.7 million titles available at the US store[3] and as of February 2016, there are over 4.3 million e-books available.[4] Content from the store is purchased online and downloaded using either Wi-Fi or Amazon's 3G Whispernet to the user's device.[5]

E-book prices

In late 2007, new releases and New York Times best sellers were being offered for approximately $11 at the store, with first chapters of many books offered as free samples. Many titles, including some classics, are offered free of charge or at a low price, which has been stated to relate to the cost of adapting the book to the Kindle format. Magazines, newspapers and blogs via RSS are provided for a monthly subscription fee or during a free trial period. Newspaper subscriptions cost from $1.99 to $27.99 per month; magazines charge between $1.25 and $10.99 per month, and blogs charge from $0.99 to $1.99 per month.[6] Amazon e-book sales overtook print for one day for the first time on Christmas Day of 2009.[7] International users pay different prices for e-books depending on the country in their home address.

Lending Library

As a member of Amazon Prime, access to the "Kindle Owners' Lending Library" is a perk that allows Kindle-owning members to borrow one e-book, choosing from over 600,000 titles as of July 2014, per calendar month from the Kindle Store.[8]

Kindle Unlimited

In July 2014, Amazon added the Kindle Unlimited subscription service to the store that at release allowed unlimited access to over 638,000 titles and over 7,000 audiobooks for a $9.99 monthly fee.[9][10] As of June 2015, there were over one million titles available in Kindle Unlimited,[11] from publishers such as Algonquin Books, Allworth Press, Basic Books, Chronicle Books, Greenleaf Book Group, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, HOW Books, Indiana University Press, Lerner Publishing Group, Lonely Planet, Mariner Books, North Light Books, Rodale, Inc., Skyhorse Publishing, Storey Publishing, Sussex Academic Press, Timber Press, and Workman Publishing Company.[12] As of February 2016, the US version of Kindle Unlimited includes over 1.2 million titles that includes over 200,000 foreign language titles.[13]

Whispersync

Whispersync is a service provided for e-books acquired from the Kindle Store that allows customers to synchronize reading progress, bookmarks, and other information across Kindle devices and Kindle apps.[14][15] The service debuted with the Kindle 2's release in February 2009.[16]

File formats

The Kindle Store offer e-books in Amazon's proprietary e-book formats: AZW, and, in fourth generation and later Kindles, AZW3, also called KF8.[17]

The Kindle Store's terms of use forbid transferring Amazon format e-books to another user or a different type of device.[18] However, Amazon allows limited lending of certain e-books.[19]

References

  1. ↑ Patel, Nilay (November 21, 2007). "Kindle Sells Out in 5.5 Hours". Engadget.com. Archived from the original on November 23, 2007. Retrieved November 21, 2007.
  2. ↑ "Kindle Books: Kindle Store : Nonfiction, Fiction, History, Advice & How-to, Business & Investing & More". Amazon.com. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Kindle Books: Kindle Store : Nonfiction, Fiction, History, Advice & How-to, Business & Investing & More". Amazon.com. Retrieved July 23, 2014.
  4. ↑ Kindle eBooks: Kindle Store : Nonfiction, Fiction, History, Advice & How-to, Business & Investing & More Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  5. ↑ "Kindle Wireless Reading Device - 2nd Generation". Amazon.com. Archived from the original on August 9, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
  6. ↑ Ricker, Thomas (November 19, 2007). "Amazon Kindle available now on Amazon". Engadget. Archived from the original on November 22, 2007. Retrieved November 21, 2007.
  7. ↑ Allen, Katie (December 28, 2009). "Amazon e-book sales overtake print for first time". The Guardian (London). Archived from the original on December 31, 2009. Retrieved December 28, 2009.
  8. ↑ Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  9. ↑ Owen, Laura Hazard (16 July 2014). "Amazon is testing "Kindle Unlimited," an ebook subscription service for $9.99/month". Gigaom. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  10. ↑ "About Kindle Unlimited". Amazon.com. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  11. ↑ "More than a million books in Kindle Unlimited". I Love My Kindle (blog). 17 June 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
  12. ↑ According to search results on Amazon.com on 4 August 2015.
  13. ↑ Amazon.com: Kindle Unlimited: Kindle Store Retrieved 26 February 2016.
  14. ↑ "Kindle for iPhone home page". Archived from the original on February 5, 2010. Retrieved December 30, 2009.
  15. ↑ Kafka, Peter. "That Was Fast: Kindle, Meet the iPhone.". Retrieved December 30, 2009.
  16. ↑ Whispersync: The Real News Behind Kindle 2 Techhive February 2009
  17. ↑ "AZW3 file - Zamzar - Free online file conversion".
  18. ↑ "Amazon Kindle: License Agreement and Terms of Use". Amazon.com, Inc. February 9, 2009. Archived from the original on January 9, 2011. Retrieved December 2, 2010.
  19. ↑ Hastings, Rob (January 1, 2011). "Amazon allows customers to lend e-books to just one friend". The Independent. Retrieved January 2, 2011.

External links

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