Posted on 12/30/2009 8:42:01 AM PST by Milhous
Amazon's Kindle Reader cuts book shipping
Book sales in the United States surged during the holiday season, but in a dramatic shift for the shipping world, retailer Amazon.com said this week sales of e-books for the first time surpassed sales of physical books.
Amazon’s peak in e-book sales occurred on Christmas day as gift recipients used their new Kindle reading devices to make purchases from among the 390,000 books available in Amazon’s Kindle Store.
The Kindle electronic reader, which allows users to download books and other media from a variety of sources, was “the most gifted item ever in our history,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Overall retail spending the first of November through Dec. 24 increased 3.6 percent compared with last year, according to MasterCard’s SpendingPulse survey, which tracks cash as well as credit purchases. The online portion of sales jumped 15.5 percent compared with last year to account for 10 percent of all retail sales, the survey said.
Another retailer industry watcher said online spending in the United States grew 10 percent in November over a year ago. The comScore research firm said online sales reached $12.3 billion in November, and the group said visits to the Web site of Wal-Mart grew 62 percent and visits to the Target site grew 43 percent over last year.
Mikey, Mikey, I buy you books and you tear out the pages........
Thanks. We will get her hooked up.
Stephanie Plum is great! Don’t you love series books? I hate getting to the end of a single issue story. It’s like a friend died. :(
Re: bookstores—does Wal-mart count? LOL
Can you tell me the name of the app.... or I can go search. Sounds like something I would love!
Just curious as to how much a Kindle goes for?
$200 - $300, judging from the hits returned by searching for “Kindle” at amazon.com.
Now that I have an 802.11b/g Wi-Fi "hotspot" running at my house, I am seriously considering getting the iSlate.
appreciate the info
As much as I like my Kindle, I still have a problem fitting it into my favorite wintertime routine.
When I settle down in my chair by the fireplace in the evening with the fire going, my glass of Scotch in hand, and the dogs snoring away at my feet, it just feels downright weird having this little plastic thing in my hand instead of a big old book.
Precisely the same size as a trade paperback. Load "Kindle for PC", FBReader, Microsoft Reader, and any other "reader" you want (as long as it has a version that runs under Windows, which virtually every "reader" does). Add Adobe Acrobat for .pdf and use Notepad for .txt, and you're set to read anything, anywhere.
Can plug in two separate SDHC cards (thus up to 64GB of removable storage). Runs Windows 7. Set it up to use the "Windows Classic" interface instead of "Aero", and it is plenty fast.
I agree. I received my Kindle last year for Christmas and love it. For me, the ability to hold the print flat, instead of on a curved page, the off white color instead of glaring white paper, and being able to change the font size, makes reading so much easier for me on a Kindle then on a printed book. That being said, the illustrations, maps, diagrams, etc., in my Kindle editions are harder to see in detail. I also love being able to download a free sample of a book rather than take a chance on buying a book I don’t like.
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