Kindle update
I received a mostly form response from Amazon about the feedback I sent them on the Kindle. The salient part was the as-expected confirmation that “[t]he content owners do decide on the availability and the price in which [sic] we sell content.” So it may be that in inking an agreement with Amazon publishers get options such as “Printed version: available outside US? [yes/no]” and “Make available as ebook? In US [yes/no] Outside US [yes/no]” — and at the moment everyone’s checking “no” to the latter, or charging more.
I wonder what the prospects are for this to improve. The incentive for most English-language publishers to sell ebooks in Japan must be fairly minor; but on the flipside, if their printed books are already available here, why not make the ebooks accessible also? Is it just a matter of publishers thinking “ah, if the Kindle’s not available in Japan yet then why bother making our content available as ebooks there?”
If the latter, then perhaps more publishers will simply opt to “switch on” the availability of their content when the Kindle actually goes on sale.
The current situation is extraordinarily frustrating, though. It feels like the past; positively medieval, in fact. Certainly not like 2009.
