Kindle gets the big O
Amazon is preparing for a boost in sales of its Kindle electronic reader device after Oprah Winfrey described it as “life changing”. The firm hopes to duplicate the success of authors who’ve rocketed to the top of best sellers lists after being featured on her show.
As part of the pre-taped show, which airs tonight (Friday), Winfrey said the device was her “new favourite gadget.” She’s certainly a major force when it comes to books themselves thanks to her ‘Oprah’s Book Club’ segment. BusinessWeek claims publishers rate her ability to boost sales as being between 20 and 100 times that of any other public figure.
You have to hand it to Amazon’s marketing department: a trailer for the show is now front and center on the Amazon.com home page.
And the firm says it has stock ready to ship, which will avoid missing out on any potential sales boost. There’s also a $50 discount if you enter the code ‘OPRAHWINFREY’ into the coupon code box on the site before 1 November.
The Financial Times highlights an interesting note from Amazon’s conference call earlier this week to discuss its latest financial figures. Founder Jeff Bezos said the average Kindle buyer continues buying the same number of physical books from the site, but also gets around 1.6 times that number of downloaded titles.
Those figures certainly dampen fears that the device would simply change the way people buy books and not affect sales. Bezos also said its likely prices for hardcopy books will eventually fall thanks to the competitions from Kindle downloads, though he believes overall sales will increase enough to maintain revenues.
While it’s far from certain Oprah’s endorsement will be enough to shift a $300+ device, the Kindle does at least now stand a better chance of breaking through from an early-adopter gadget to a mainstream device.
Related Posts:
October 24th, 2008
Got it. Vote for Obama, and buy a kindle. Thank you Oprah.
October 25th, 2008
As an editor and writer who saw his first published story set in hot metal, I marvel at Amazon’s Kindle reader and its role in the future of the “printed” word.
I’m thrilled to see Oprah endorse Kindle!
No traditional book can offer the interactive platform I’ve created for the Kindle edition of my novel Brazil or open the door to actively sharing the magic that goes into the making of a monumental novel.
Linked to the e-text is a unique and free online guide with more than 200 images and illustrations, providing an indispensable companion on a fictional journey through five hundred years of Brazilian history.
Preview the guide at my website: http://www.erroluys.com
I’ve also linked the Kindle Illustrated Guide to Brazil to an archive of my working notes, plus a journal kept on a four-month 20,000-kilometer trek across Brazil. What better way for the reader-explorer of an epic as vast as Brazil to discover a totally new and original world beyond stereotypes of samba and Carnival!
Were Gutenberg here to see the Kindle, he would have one word to say: “Bravo!”