Italy and Spain Get New Kindle Stores
Amazon opened Kindle stores in Italy and Spain that will enable independent publishing. These are in addition to the French, German, US and UK Amazon sites. Through the sites, independent publishers and authors will be able to reach markets that have non-English speakers. Soon, the new stores too will have a number of e-books.
Recently, in the US, Amazon released two devices – Kindle Touch and Fire. This shows that e-books are being accepted widely by readers in the US. The uptake of e-books in the country is quite high when compared to that in the rest of the world. There are a few reasons for this, as we will discuss below.
Late Release of Kindle in Rest of the World
In the US, Kindle (first generation), was released in 2007. It was brought out to other markets only in 2009. The same trend is seen even now. For instance, Kindle Fire was released in the US recently, but it is yet to reach the UK. However, the uptake of the first generation Kindle was quite slow in these markets when compared to that in America when it was first released.
Readers in UK have to Pay VAT for Reading on e-Book Readers
e-Books in UK have VAT, also known as value added tax. This is not applied on print books. Also, the books in the UK are generally offered as part of deals. So, readers generally get more for what they pay. On the other hand, in Australia, new books in print are quite expensive.
When compared to the cost of books in the UK, those in Australia can be three times as high. This is one of the reasons the uptake of e-book readers in Australia is higher than that in the UK. Also, in the UK, there are quite a few stores that sell second-hand books. Through the stores, readers can get the books they want, for a fraction of the price they have to pay – with VAT included – on e-book readers.
In the US and Australia, locating a physical bookstore close to residential areas can be quite difficult. This means that people generally have to travel a lot to visit a store or log on to online stores and place orders. With Kindle, people can get the books they want, with ease, almost instantly. Contrarily, in the UK, there are a lot of physical book stores. Their availability makes it easy for those who want a book, to purchase it easily.
