Kinda Kindle: Free Kindle Version When You Buy Printed Books?

by Tricia on September 5, 2013

Amazon has announced a huge new initiative that could be amazing for those of us who buy a lot of books. I have a book buying addiction, and Amazon is usually my drug of choice. I like REAL printed books, but my kids and husband tend to prefer ebooks. I refuse to buy both. Amazon might be solving my biggest book problem.

Starting in October, Amazon will be introducing Kindle MatchBook. It’s a new service that allows you to get the Kindle editions of books for free or up to $2.99 when you buy the print book through Amazon. Amazon will look at your print purchases the whole way back to 1995 when they started selling books online.

The down side is that not all books are included. It will be up to the authors and publishers. Amazon is estimating over 10,000 books will already be ready for the October launch. I really wish that this started now because I would love to read The Mortal Instruments with my daughter (that’s another whole blog post).

For those people who are afraid that Amazon is already putting local booksellers out of business, this is just one more thing to hold against them. But it does make sense. And it goes along with some of the other electronic purchase promotions they have been doing. For example, we rented The Great Gatsby movie from Amazon on Demand over the weekend. I then got an email telling me that if I decide to buy the DVD through Amazon, they will credit the price of my On Demand to the purchase price. I’ve also had the opposite where I pre-ordered a Twilight DVD (don’t judge) and they gave me the On Demand for free so that I could watch it as soon as it was released and not have to wait for the DVD arrival.

What do you think about the new Kindle MatchBook? Will you take advantage of it? Will it make you any more likely to buy books from Amazon than anywhere else?

Tagged as: amazon, books, kindle