May 30th, 2008

Amazon bolsters Kindle catalog, inks pact with Simon & Shuster

Posted by Larry Dignan @ 6:44 am

Categories: Amazon, E-commerce, General, Personal Technology

Tags: Amazon.com Inc., Simon & Shuster, Kindle, E-books, Personal Technology, Larry Dignan

Amazon said Friday that the Kindle will get 5,000 additional titles from Simon & Shuster for its e-book library.

Simon & Shuster is a unit of CBS, which is buying CNET, parent of ZDNet.

With the Simon & Shuster deal, Amazon adds titles like Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” The companies said the “great percentage” of Simon & Shuster’s backlist will be on the Kindle by the end of 2008.

In a statement, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos outlined a few Kindle details and reiterated comments made at the D6 conference earlier this week. Among the notable nuggets:

• After a Kindle purchase (all resources), customers increase their total book purchases 2.6 percent times;
• Kindle books account for 6 percent of book units that have both Kindle and physical versions;
• Amazon’s goal is to put every book into an eBook.

Simon & Schuster picked its titles based on popular sales of physical books over the last 12 months on Amazon. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

Also see: Does the Kindle have iPod-ish potential?

• Amazon’s Bezos: Our Kindle supply issues almost fixed
• Amazon.com buys Audible; March into digital content distribution continues
• Are Amazon and Apple on a digital content collision course?
• Amazon’s Kindle: Can it make its technology invisible?