March 13th, 2009

Sci-Fi Kindlenomics

Posted by Jason Perlow @ 3:24 pm

Categories: Business, Hardware Infrastructure, Personal Technology

Tags: Collection, Amazon.com Inc., Strategy, Management, Jason Perlow

Covers from the first editions of Hugo and Nebula award winning Sci-Fi Classics. Photo: AbeBooks.com

One of my industry writer friends, Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols let me in on an interesting item that came up for sale today — a full collection of Hugo and Nebula award-winning Sci-Fi novels, in their first editions.

Asking price? A mere $116,500.

Click on the “Read the rest of this entry” link below for more.

How many books are we talking here? 82 titles, which includes such greats as Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendevous with Rama, Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light, and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz.

To paraphrase Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: If I Were a Rich Man… I would buy and read these all day long, if I were a wealthy man.

But I’m not a wealthy man, I’m middle class. Barely, especially given everyone’s current economic circumstances. And even if I bought every single one of these in paperback, it would still run me around $800.00, assuming $10.00 per book.

This would seem like a golden opportunity for Amazon to make some money with the Kindle, especially if they could figure out how to offer all of these in compilation collections at a significantly reduced price. While I think the Kindle at $359.00 is pretty steep for a single function device, I might seriously consider picking one up if I could get a special Kindle 2 + Complete Hugo/Nebula collection for $500.00 or less. $450.00 would make it a complete no-brainer.

What do you say, Amazon? Can you put the ultimate SF library in the hands of the middle class nerds everywhere? Talk Back and Let Me Know.