Kindle Aims for Every Book Ever In Print
Speaking at D6, a conference about all things digital, Jeff Bezos told reporter Staci D. Kramer that about his vision for the Kindle.
The vision for Kindle is every book ever in print in any language—all available in less than 60 seconds.
It’s a lofty goal that Bezos says may take “years of work.” Years of work? You’ve got 125,000 titles and you think getting the entire compendium of printed books ever, in any language, is simply going to take years of work? I’m hoping this is just posturing or marketing because it will not be possible to do this in years, if ever!
The current way in which Amazon handles pre-ISBN (International Standard Book Number) titles isn’t very good. Long story short, Amazon doesn’t have good visibility into out-of-print books. Their catalog is often wrong because of the chaos that existed in publishing before ISBNs were introduced.
Kudos to Staci D. Kramer for not drinking the Kool Aid and believing that publishers are eager to contribute titles to Kindle. If this were the case you’d have plenty more titles available already. According to Bowker, the number of titles currently available on Kindle is only a third of the total titles published in 2006.
A third of a single year!
Publishers are wary of the digital age and the entrance of Amazon into this arena. Some may embrace the idea, but I believe most have a gut sense that Amazon must be getting more out of the deal somehow. These are established (some stodgy) companies who are not ready to cede control of the future of books to one player.
Mr. Bezos, my advice is to focus on the renewable and ripe market of textbooks.
