More Titles Available For Amazon's Kindle Despite Fears By Other Publishers

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Tricia Duryee

mocoNews.net
Tuesday, June 3, 2008; 2:00 PM

The book-publishing industry is not sure what to make of the Amazon ( NSDQ: AMZN) Kindle wireless reader. The device's creator Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos addressed the industry in front of a packed crowd on Friday at the BookExpo Convention in Los Angeles, and spent a lot of the time talking about about the device, which accounts for 6 percent of his company's book sales that are available in both paper and electronic forms. But it appears there's two camps forming on whether the device is an opportunity or threat. Publisher Simon & Schuster said it is making 130,000 titles available for the device, an increase of 5,000, reports AP. At the same time, publishers are concerned about Amazon's growing dominance as a bookseller, NYTimes reported. The fear is that Amazon will put pressure on publishers to cut prices of book titles since electronic versions sold for the Kindle are at way lower price points.

Still, the NY Times writes that digital book sales are soaring, quoting Simon & Schuster's CEO Carolyn K. Reidy as saying that sales will more than double this year compared to last year, after growing 40 percent in 2007 from 2006. Penguin Group USA's CEO David Shanks added that his company sold more electronic books in the first four months of this year compared to all of 2007.

There's been a lot of debate on how many Kindles have been sold and how popular the device will be in the future. The one very smart feature that makes the device easy-to-use is that it includes wireless network access for free (on the Sprint ( NYSE: S) network) with the $359 price tag.

@ D6: Jeff Bezos: Kindle Contributes 6 Percent Of Title Sales Amazon Drops Kindle Price By $40 Gadget Round-Up: Kindle's 2010 Estimates; BlackBerry Gets Touchy; Palm Downgraded To Sell

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