Slimmed down Kindle for UK market

Amazon is releasing a slimmed-down Kindle e-reader with a beefed-up selection of books for the UK market.

It comes as the book giant predicts that digital reading will go mass market with the majority of books being sold in digital format “in coming years”.

The e-reader, which has been available on Amazon’s US site since 2007, will now also be available on its UK site.

The device will be priced at £149 with free 3G wireless supplied by Vodafone.

More than 200,000 books have been added to the UK Kindle store, including novels from best-selling authors such as John Grisham, Stephen King and Stephenie Meyer.

Amazon kindle Ebook reader

Speaking to the BBC News, Steve Kessel, the vice president of Kindle, said: “In coming years I do think that the majority of books sold will be digital.”

“People prefer the reading experience, you have your library in your hands and can think of a book and download it 60 seconds later,” he said.

In the last 30 days, Amazon has sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books.

Amazon’s Kindle book store will sell 400,000 new books at lower prices than hardbacks, as well as more than a million out of copyright works. Titles including bestsellers such as Peter Mandelson’s The Third Man and One Day by David Nicholls will, the company hopes, allow its store to take customers away from the pre-existing Apple iBookstore and rivals such as Kobo.

The new device weighs 247g and offers improved page turning speed and contrast compared to the previous Kindle versions that have been available outside the UK. There will be no monthly fees for owners of the 3G device, which will use Vodafone’s network to download books in approximately a minute.

Although the Kindle screen only offers a black and white display, Amazon has released Kindle Apps for other devices including Apple’s iPad.