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It’s not that long since Amazon announced that they were selling more Kindle books than hardback editions. They are now advising that Kindle books are even outselling paperbacks. It can only be a matter of time before Kindle book sales are higher than both hardbacks and paperbacks combined.

It’s almost inevitable in a way. After all, people who are prepared to shell out $ 139 for a Kindle reader are going to be the ones who read a lot of books aren’t they? There will always be a few staunch bibliophiles who prefer reading a “real” book – but, by and large, we do appear to be heading towards a situation where e-books assume ever greater importance in the literary world.

There’s certainly no shortage of Kindle books for prospective customers to choose from. Currently there are in excess of 800,000 Kindle books on sale on Amazon’s Kindle store. This number is growing daily – and there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright books which can be downloaded for free. These include titles by the likes of Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Homer, Virgil among others.

Amazon has also released a variety of free apps which permit Kindle books to be read without the use of a Kindle reader. These exist for the PC, the Mac, the Apple iPad, the iPod Touch, the Blackberry smart phone and any device which runs Android. An app for the HP tablet computer is believed to be imminent. What this means is that users needn’t worry about their Kindle becoming obsolete. Each app also serves as an extra sales outlet for Amazon.

Estimates put Amazon’s share of the current e-book market at approximately 90%. Obviously that can’t continue, and industry analysts are forecasting an approximately equal three way split between Amazon, Google and Apple by 2015. However, those are the same analysts who forecast that the launch of the Apple iPad would sound the death knell for the Kindle, and they didn’t exactly get that right did they?

In point of fact, the new third generation Kindle reader is selling faster than ever. It was Amazon’s best selling product (again) during the 2010 festive sales season, and the Kindle has now been Amazon’s best selling item for eighteen months. 2011 sales forecasts have been increased from 5 million Kindles to 8 million, based upon recent sales returns. Some rationalisation of the market seems probable in the future, but there’s no evidence that the dominance of the Kindle is going to reduce in the short to medium term.

Read all about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!

Now that the dust from the Christmas sales season has died down a little, it seems obvious that it has been another massively successful year for the Amazon Kindle ebook reader. The latest Kindle 3, which launched at the end of August 2010 has pretty much carried on where the Kindle 2.0 left off and held it’s position as Amazon’s top selling product.

Over the Christmas sales period (November 14 to December 19) it outsold all other items on the Amazon website. The 8GB Apple iPod Touch took second place.

As usual, Amazon is playing its cards pretty close to its corporate chest when it comes to actual numbers. However, industry analysts have increased their prediction for 2011 Kindle sales from 5 million units to 8 million. It’s also worth noting that industry analysts estimate Amazon’s share of the current ebook market to be an astonishing 90%.

It’s the combined effect of the Kindle reader and the huge choice of Kindle books which appears to tip the scales in Amazon’s favor. Currently, customers have a selection of more than 800,000 Kindle books to choose from. Those paid titles are augmented by an additional 1.8 million out of copyright titles – including classics by the likes of Jules Verne, Homer, Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte – which can be downloaded free of charge. You can save money and make your Kindle reader pay for itself.

Amazon was also rather clever when it released a whole host of free Kindle “apps” onto the market. These allow users to read Kindle books on other portable electronic devices, so there’s no need to worry about losing your ebook library should you decide to change hardware. At the moment, Kindle apps exist for the Windows PC, the Mac computer, the Apple iPad, the iPhone, the Blackberry smart phone and any device running the Android operating system. Of course, each of these apps can also be considered to be an effective route to market for Kindle books.

Whatever you may think regarding the comparison between ebook readers and “real” books, it seems to be abundantly clear that the Amazon Kindle is the number one ebook reader by a country mile. The only real competition to the Kindle at the moment comes in the shape of Apple’s iPad, a device which retails for more than triple the Kindle price.

According to business analysts, Amazon’s share of ebook sales will diminish somewhat in future. However, considering that their current market share is 90%, that is scarcely a damning indictment. It’s hard to see how a level as high as that could be maintained in perpetuity. Predictions are for a roughly equal three way split, carved up between Amazon, Google and Apple, by around about 2015. Of course, based upon current growth, Amazon will have a smaller percentage of a very much larger market.

At present, there is nothing to suggest that the Kindle’s dominance is reducing. Any additional competition following the release of Apple’s iPad doesn’t look like it has impacted too heavily on Amazon’s game plan. As the market matures, it seems inevitable that there will be some degree of rationalisation – but in the meantime Amazon look set to make hay while the sun shines and continue to be one of the dominant influences in the digital publishing sector for the foreseeable future.

Discover the Kindle reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

The Amazon Kindle reader is one of the main reasons that ebooks ever took off. Unpopular when the only option was to read them on an ordinary computer screen, sales of ebooks skyrocketed when specialized devices were created to allow a more enjoyable reading experience. Now, they are commonplace.

The Kindle is actually a software format, which is typically run on an ebook reader. The software is now available for download onto various computerized platforms, including Android and Windows phones, as well as laptops and desktops, though. With the software loaded onto a personal computer, people can purchase and read thousands of books on their computers without having to own the device.

Since the second version of the device, there have been two varieties of Kindles for sale– the original, and a larger-screened variety referred to as the DX. The variety with a bigger screen is intended to be used for reading newspapers, textbooks, and other reading materials that would display better on a larger screen. Problems include the clunkier nature of the larger device, and the fact that page numbers from print editions are not preserved, making scholastic quoting or referencing difficult.

Ebook readers are popular because no one likes reading on the standard computer screen. Smartphones would have taken over completely if people just wanted portable books, but since ebook readers have a more comfortable screen for reading, they are still selling. Ebook readers feature a gray-scale screen that isn’t as bright as a traditional computer screen, and is improved upon between every generation of readers.

There have been three generation of Kindles now, and reviewers state that the latest version, the third, has vastly improved upon the screen technology of the first two. This new version is the first to have wifi capabilities, allowing downloads of eBooks from anywhere with wireless network access.

Both Kindles number 2 and 3 have at least one option with 3G cell phone network access capabilities. Every version 2 device has this capacity, but there is a cheaper variety of version 3 that only has wifi and lacks the 3G network access capability. The variety of version 3 with 3G access has been criticized for not having as nice of reception as version 2 did.

Reading ebooks allows a person to carry around as many as 1500 books (the estimated capacity of the Amazon Kindle reader version 2). But all of these books must be purchased from a company directly, without the availability of used or library copies. These ways to access cheaper traditional reading material means that upgrading to ebooks can be quite an expensive proposition.

Find out more about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!

It seems like with every technological leap forward people start to yell about the death of something traditional. These proclamations are premature for sure and only serve to show how much we don’t understand about the demands of our society. The publishing industry has been targeted for some time and there is some truth to the sentiment that it has to change. The old rules simply do not apply and people do not read as much as they used to and frankly there are too many writers on the market. The Amazon Kindle Reader was unveiled to great fanfare, but is it really that great?

Part of the issue with previous electronic reading devices, or e-readers, was the glare of the screen. Many people have issues with starting at computer screens for extended lengths of time, with accompanying eye and headaches being some of the most common complaints.

The technology within the Kindle has revolutionized this issue through the invention of electronic ink. Basically it is a take off of the technology that exists in a child’s etch a sketch and doesn’t impart any strain on the person reading. Even though it is no longer the only reader on the market, it does remain one of the best.

For those who travel or even have long commutes in the morning and want something to read, lugging along a book or magazine can be a real pain. Part of this is, especially for those who travel, the low attention span that many of us have and we want more than one book with us in case we get board.

The amount of novels that are available to you now runs in the hundreds of thousands with more authors joining everyday. New releases can cost a pretty penny, but for the electronic version you are already saving more money and classic novels don’t cost anything.

There is a nice added bonus of free classics so that you can finally get around to reading the books you never cared about in high school without paying anything for them. You can also read excerpts of some books that you are iffy on in purchasing so that this slim and light reader is like literally having an entire bookstore at your disposal. Most people just don’t have time to get to bookstores and now they don’t have to.

But what about getting these books, does it take forever? Not at all! The download speed for one entire novel is under one minute. Also, copies of what you purchase are stored within your Amazon account so that if something happens to your reader you don’t lose all of your books.

Your Amazon account stores all your purchases in case of emergencies and you are not only saving money but also trees. The future of books is here and can be found with the Amazon Kindle Reader.

Learn more about the Amazon Kindle reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.

If you’re searching for a gift – be it for Christmas, a birthday, an anniversary, or some other special occasion, then the chances are pretty good that you might wind up doing some online research at Amazon. They are the largest online retailer in the world after all. One of the big advantages of online retail stores like Amazon is that you can see what’s selling well. You can be certain that any product in the Amazon top sellers list is very popular indeed. These lists can be a great source of gift ideas for you.

You can be sure that demand for the best selling item on Amazon’s website is huge. In fact, you can be sure that it is in very high demand. Amazon’s Kindle reader has been the most wished for, most gifted and number one selling item on their website since 2009. Many industry analysts forecast that the Kindle would fade into obscurity following the release of Apple’s iPad – but, if anything, it seems to be more popular than ever.

The release of the updated Kindle 3 in August of 2010 simply reinforced Amazon’s domination of the ebook reader market. The latest enhanced Kindle 3 has a variety of different technical upgrades – including a smaller and lighter case, increased memory (enough for around 3,500 books) and an even better, high contrast e-ink technology display.

Amazon also launched a new, WiFi only, entry level model – which is ideal for anyone who doesn’t need to connect away from a WiFi zone. The WiFi plus 3G model also saw its price fall to just $ 189. Both of these options are priced considerably below even the entry level iPad, and that was undoubtedly a major factor in ensuring that the third generation reader became the fastest selling version of the Kindle to date.

The fact that the Kindle has no download fees, or any monthly connection charges, is another big selling point for it. Although Amazon is somewhat secretive as far as precise sales figures go, a company spokesman recently confirmed that the Kindle 3 had sold “millions” between its August launch and mid-December 2010.

The new low price levels are making e-book readers more attractive to potential customers. Considering that e-book prices are usually lower than traditional printed books, and also that there are many out of copyright books available as free downloads, it’s not out of the question that e-book reader owners could recover the cost of their hardware in a fairly short time.

2010 may well prove to be the year that e-book readers finally go mainstream. Lower price levels, improved functionality and an ever expanding number of available books to choose from will make e-book readers in general, and the Kindle 3 in particular, a popular gift choice during the 2010 festive season and also into 2011.

Read all about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!

When the dust settles and the sales returns are all in after the 2010 festive season, there’s little doubt that it will have been another record breaking year for the Amazon Kindle reader. In spite of the premature rumors of the Kindle’s imminent demise as a result of the release of the Apple iPad, Amazon’s category leading ebook reader just seems to go from strength to strength.

Even without the inclusion of a color screen, the launch of the Kindle 3 in the autumn of 2010 opened the gap between the Kindle and the chasing pack even further. In addition to a host of technical upgrades, including increased memory (enough for up to 3,500 titles), a better contrast display and a smaller and lighter case, Amazon introduced a WiFi only entry level model.

Priced at just $ 139, the base model Kindle is less than a third of the cost of the entry level iPad. The WiFi plus 3G model is available for $ 189 – still well below the iPad price level. The fact that there are no monthly download fees associated with the Kindle remains another very big selling point of course.

Another big selling point of the Kindle has always been the enormous collection of Kindle books available for download from the Amazon website. At the moment there are over 750,00 Kindle books for sale on Amazon’s website. There are a further 1.8 million books published prior to 1923 and which are now out of copyright – including many well known classics – which are available for free download.

One of the things that many prospective e-book reader buyers seem to fret over is that they will be “tied” to their reader. They feel that having bought a lot of e-books in a particular format, they will be unable to transfer their books should they wish to switch to another e-book reader later.

This potential problem has been dealt with very effectively by Amazon who have released a variety of free apps that let users download and read Kindle books without the need for a Kindle reader. Currently, there are free Kindle apps for the PC, the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, Blackberry’s smart phone, the new Windows phone and any device which runs the Android operating system. It’s a strategy which seems likely to pay dividends for Amazon. As well as overcoming any concerns regarding the transfer of e-books, each of these apps is effectively a retail outlet for Kindle books. It’s estimated that approximately 20% of Kindle book sales are made using non-Kindle devices. That’s a percentage which will probably increase in future.

As improbable as it may have appeared at certain points throughout the year, 2010 has seen the Kindle reinforce its market dominance even more. The only credible competition to the Kindle comes from a tablet computer which costs more than three times as much as the Kindle – and that tells a story in itself. It will be interesting to see what 2011 brings for the e-book reader market in general – and the Kindle in particular.

Learn all about the Kindle 3 for yourself. It’s the future of reading – you can even play games on the Amazon Kindle – some games are even free!

The Christmas sales season is a very important time for any retailer. As much as 40% of annual sales returns can be achieved in the few weeks leading up to Christmas. For Amazon, the 2009 Christmas period was an extremely important period, for a variety of reasons over and above the normal sales surge.

Amazon’s Kindle 2.0 e-book reader, released in February of 2009, and which had already proven to be a very successful product for Amazon, became the online retail giant’s best selling, most gifted and most wished for product ever. It has been Amazon’s best selling item since then.

Amazon actually sold more Kindle books than traditional printed books for the first time ever on Christmas day of 2009. This would almost certainly have been influenced by those lucky people who received a Kindle as a Christmas gift trying out their Kindles by logging on to the Amazon website and downloading one or two Kindle books. Many of these would almost certainly have been free Kindle books (there are 1.8 million of these available).

Nevertheless, it was still a landmark moment for Amazon and a sign of things to come. Currently, Amazon regularly sells more Kindle books than hardback books – by a factor of 1.8 to 1. It looks like it will be no more than a matter of time before Kindle book sales outstrip paperback sales as well.

In the autumn of 2010, Amazon unveiled their updated Kindle 3 reader. There were a variety of technical improvements – including extra memory (enough space for 3,500 Kindle books), an improved e-ink technology screen with better contrast and a smaller and lighter casing. Amazon also unveiled their new, base level Wi-Fi only Kindle – which sells for just $ 139. For another $ 50 you can get hold of the Wi-Fi plus 3G model – which is still way cheaper than the original $ 359 launch price of the Kindle 2.0.

The Kindle, with a $ 139 price tag, is very close to being a personal electronics “impulse buy”. You could pay a good deal more for something such as a mobile phone or a mid level mp3 player!

Despite the launch of the Apple iPad – predicted to be a “Kindle Killer” by many business analysts – the Kindle 3 quickly went on to become the fastest selling Kindle to date. Amazon sold out of Kindles – for the umpteenth time – and customers faced a wait of up to five weeks before their reader could be delivered.

The Kindle was already the market’s top selling e-book reader. The release of the improved Kindle 3 opened the gap between Amazon’s reader and the chasing pack even further. The fact that the Kindle’s only credible competition comes in the shape of a tablet computer which costs more than three times as much as the Kindle speaks volumes.

All things considered, Amazon must be anticipating another set of record breaking sales for their latest Kindle reader. It will be interesting to see whether or not Amazon run out of Kindles again in the run up to Christmas. Currently, there is a three Kindles per customer limit – surely a sign of Amazon’s confidence in their top selling reader. All the signs point to it being another Kindle Christmas in 2010.

Check out the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.