The United Kingdom’s largest retail book chain, Waterstones is about to do a deal with Amazon to sell Kindle e-readers after its boss initially rejected the idea.
The UK’s other major book seller, Border’s, finally closed its doors across the land, having failed to accept that ebooks were on the rise. Perhaps James Daunt, the managing director of Waterstones had a change of heart, fearing his chain may go the same way, or maybe he saw the writing on the wall for physical books – who knows?
Here in the UK, ebook sales are steadily on the rise. In fact, depending on who you speak to, or what paper you read, ebooks now outsell conventional paperbacks, but don’t quote me on that.
Given the current debate going on at present over the number of Kindles that are freezing – mainly third generation units, and Amazon’s statement that while they expect the product to last three years, in reality most barely make it past eleven months after sale. It begs the question why Waterstones have agreed to sell Amazon’s ereader. Why not another brand like Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Or Apple’s equivalent, to name two?
There are an awful lot of totally dissatisfied Amazon customers here in the UK at the moment. Most were initially happy when Amazon UK replaced the frozen units, honoring the one year replacement guarantee. The trouble is that when your replacement dies, you find that its warranty was only good for ninety days, not a year.
If you have one of the original Kindles, the kind with no keyboard or touchscreen technology, you should have no trouble.
Here’s hoping Waterstones don’t come to regret their managing director’s decision.
