Comment: More on the “International” Amazon.com Kindle

I had a feeling yesterday that this was going to be messy and I was right!

The messiest bit from mine and your points of view is that at the minute you’re going to be buy an American focused product which Amazon.com will kindly let you use in the UK, and other countries except Canada bizarrely. And here are a list of things that UK consumers can expect:

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Think of a book and you could be reading it in under a minute

That would be quite good though probably not for the bank balance but really does make the idea of an ereader viable for a lot of people – you don’t really want to be messing with cables and wires and computers unless you can help it. Not that’s complicated to get things on my lovely Sony Reader but I’m all for simplicity.

Free Wireless: Free 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle. No monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots. For non-U.S. customers, there are also no additional charges for wireless delivery outside your home country. See Coverage Map. See Wireless Terms and Conditions

There is a bit of confusion over this point. There is a $1.99 charge for downloading books outside your home country. But UK consumers will be in their home country so no fees apply.

Large Selection: Over 280,000 English-language books to choose from; plus U.S. and international newspapers and magazines

Ah yes, well, you know I was talking about territorial rights. Well they are going to be in place so according thebookseller:

Amazon has put safeguards in place to ensure that territorial rights are respected, with more than 280,000 e-books to be made available in the UK from publishers including Hachette, HarperCollins, Atlantic, Bloomsbury, Canongate, Faber and Wiley, and with customers in more than 100 countries able to buy the device.

And they quote:

Amazon said a safeguard has been put in place to respect territorial rights. A spokesman added: “When a customer first buys Kindle content, they identify their region or country. In order to simplify their browsing experience, we then display the appropriate catalogue for the customer.

And that leaves Random House and Macmillan amongst others missing for the time being waiting until they sort things out a bit better.

Important Product Information for Your Country
Your international shipment is subject to customs duties, import taxes and other fees levied by the destination country. We will show you these fees upon checkout.

Told you it was going to get messy. Hassle I don’t fancy.

Kindle ships with a U.S. power adapter and a micro-USB cable for charging your Kindle via a computer USB port. The U.S. power adapter supports voltages between 100V – 240V.

Told you that it wasn’t really a UK product and more a rush job. I’d like my UK charger thanks.

Kindle books, newspapers, and magazine are currently priced and sold in United States dollars

I’m going to hand this one over to Charlie Stross and his blog post called Jeff Bezos Eats Kittens, which is well worth reading for lots of reasons including:

We desperately need a sane price structure for commercial ebooks, a better answer to English language rights licensing, and solutions that make books easier and cheaper for readers to get hold of while enabling authors and editors to continue to earn a living.

But also where is the money going to end up? Here in the UK or US?

Blogs and the experimental web browser are currently not available for your country

Told you, hasty and not planned out.

But we do get:

Kindle includes a 1-year limited warranty.

Though I’m not sure I fancy the fees and the hassle if the service, fixing etc are done in America.

So overall, a piss poor effort by the leading supplier of online books. And you have to think whether they have our interests in mind or just want to make more money?