Here is another article of interest as seen in the Frankfurt Fair Dealer magazine and which involves the "Kindle" or Amazon's electronic e-book reader.
Amazon has given the international publishing community plenty to ponder as it gathers this week in Frankfurt. The pending (19 October) release of a $279 Kindle that will be available for sale in more than 100 countries has raised a variety of questions, the most pressing of which are
- How will the integrity of territorial rights be maintained?
- What will be the impact of digital editions on the open market?
- How will the international selling of English-language editions be priced and released?
An Amazon spokesperson said the e-tailer has worked with publishers to build a database that knows the correct territory where each of the 200,000 English-language titles available for sale through the international Kindle can be sold.
According to Amazon, each customer has a content catalogue associated with his or her region or country, and when a customer orders an e-book, Amazon will display the appropriate catalogue for the customer.
A customer in the UK, for example, will only be able to buy a British edition of an e-book. At present, all international customers will order e-books through their devices or from the main amazon.com website; in some cases multiple copies may appear in the database but Amazon will only allow customers to download the appropriate edition.
Amazon is establishing the prices, and in the UK those editions will be higher than the $9.99 Amazon charges for many American e-books. UK prices will range from $11.99 to $13.99, which includes VAT (value-added tax).