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ISSUES IN SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION:
News for the University of Illinois Community

« Harvard Law School Mandates Open Access | Main | U of Illinois Signs Intent to Participate in SCOAP3 »

June 24, 2008

University Presses Start to Sell Via Kindle

From Inside Higher Ed (June 24, 2008):

The Subprime Solution: How Today’s Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do About It is a promising new title from Princeton University Press. ...

The Princeton press is planning something new for the release: Two weeks before print publication the book will be available as a Kindle e-book. Kindle is Amazon.com’s portable reader that allows for downloading of complete books. Launched in November, ... Kindle has been hailed as potentially opening up a new kind of reading experience. ... Kindle’s Amazon backing has given it a market that is attractive to many publishers — including university presses.

By the beginning of the fall, Princeton plans to have several hundred books available for sale through Kindle. Yale University Press and Oxford University Press already have a similar presence there. The University of California Press recently had about 40 of its volumes placed on Kindle and is ramping up.

... The experimentation with Kindle comes at a time that many experts are urging university presses to try new business models.

Readers would save some on Kindle books, but at least now modestly, and only after recouping the costs of the reader (currently at $359). The Kindle version of an Oxford book called Punishment and Democracy: Three Strikes and You’re Out in California sells for $21.96, compared to $24.40 for the paperback through Amazon. The latter also takes two to four weeks to ship and requires shipping fees. A Yale book, Churchill’s Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft, is available for $25.20 via Kindle and $28 plus shipping in hardcover.

Read the full article.
Learn more about Kindle.

Posted by Katie Newman at June 24, 2008 11:56 AM