The Amazon Kindle ebook reader family has made a huge impact on the book scene in a very short space of time. The first Kindle began shipping in November 2007. The Kindle 2 was launched in February of 2009 and the larger format Kindle DX, aimed at readers of newspapers, magazines and textbooks followed rapidly in June of 2009.

Despite the fact that both the Kindle 2 and the DX were launched in the middle of a fairly bleak economic downturn, they still had strong sales. Certainly, there has been some criticism of the fairly high ticket price for both the Kindle 2 and the DX, but it seems as if Amazon’s target market are more than willing to pay $359 and $489 for the Kindle 2 and the DX respectively.

One of the selling points of the Kindle series is the fact that there is no monthly fee required for the ability to download ebooks. Amazon use a 3G connection – called Whispernet – which means Kindle owners can download books from the Amazon store in less than a minute – without the need for a notebook or a WiFi connection.

Another important perceived benefit is the fact that cheaper books are available for the Kindle. As the usual printing, paper and distribution charges associated with traditional publishing methods don’t exist, the electronic book can be offered at a lower price than the equivalent hardback.

Not only that, it’s even possible to get free kindle books directly from the Amazon store. All you need to do is visit the Amazon site, open up their Kindle store and search for books for the Kindle. If you then select the option “order by price – lowest to highest” you’ll be presented with a list of books starting at $0.

There is a selection of classics available – Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Sherlock Holmes etc. – but there is also a selection of more modern books on offer. A lot of these are from publishers wanting to showcase authors and the list is updated quite often, so it’s worth checking back every now and again.

In addition to books which are completely free, there are a good number of volumes which are available for purely nominal fees, $0.01 for example.

So, if you like the classics – or indeed any book which has been in print long enough to have entered the public domain – you could very rapidly recover the cost of your Kindle reader.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,