If there's one complaint that users of Amazon's Kindle have been voicing pretty much since day one, it's that there ought to be a way to purchase the print and digital versions of a book together, at a discount.
Soon there will be.
KindleMatchbooks is the name of a new program through which Amazon customers, beginning in October, will be able to buy cheap e-copies of books they've already bought in hardcover or paperback. The most expensive titles will sell for $2.99; the rest will be $1.99, 99 cents or, in some cases, free.
The program -- which only covers titles purchased new, not second-hand -- is retroactive. "If you logged onto your CompuServe account during the Clinton administration and bought a book like 'Men Are from
MatchBook will be far from comprehensive when it launches in October, covering, so far, only about 10,000 of the hundreds of thousands of titles Amazon carries. That selection does, however, include offerings by top-selling contemporary authors like Neil Gaiman, Jodi Picoult, Wally Lamb and Jo Nesbo, as well as the works of deceased novelists like Ray Bradbury and Michael Crichton.
If Kindle MatchBooks proves as popular as the cries for bundling suggest it will be, expect that catalog to grow fast.