Last weekend, Kindle celebrated it’s 10th anniversary (that’s right, we’ve had a whole decade of eBooks now!) In honour of the occasion, I penned a little read-to-read opinion piece for BookBrunch that links together backlist, time travel, and the famous eReading device itself! Don’t forget to click the link for the full FREE article…
The Kindle – 10 years of teaching us time travel
On the 10th anniversary of the release of Amazon’s Kindle, Jasmin Kirkbride reflects that the device has taught us not only how to read digitally, but also how to sell books by warping time
When the Kindle was released on 19 November 2007, it sold out in just 4.5 hours, and went on to disrupt the book market with a power often compared with that of the invention of the printing press. Amid the panic that naturally arises with such drastic change, there have been a few genuinely positive effects on the book market.
For the first time, Kindles provided a global, 24-hour bookstore with instant delivery. Low-cost self-publishing became viable, opening publication to a wider range of authors, from more diverse backgrounds, telling a greater breadth of stories. Smaller publishers were able to make higher profits with smaller overheads, and the lower price of digital books helped open reading to a wider audience.
Most importantly for backlist publishers like ourselves at Endeavour Press, the Kindle also reinvigorated the market for backlist books that had been dropped by more traditional publishers. This is in no small part because the Kindle store, and online retail more generally, has changed the way the consumer experiences time… [READ MORE]
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