I have heard many arguments about Kindle being expensive and people not being able to sell the books they buy on the Kindle platform. In truth, with current book prices, Amazon Kindle eBooks are not the best choice for people who are big book sellers. I personally keep all the books that I read. Books that I sell are often so low in quality that I rather take a loss and get rid of them.
Many readers sell books that they read as soon as possible and use the money to buy even more books. That’s also a sound approach. For these folks, Amazon Kindle books are not really attractive. You can’t resell Amazon Kindle books, and you can’t even share them properly (there are limitations).
So here is an idea? How tough would it be for Amazon to make DRM transfer possible on Kindles. In essence, you can sell Kindle books on Amazon to those who want to buy it. I think the technology is there. The only issue is that Amazon Kindle books don’t have conditions. In essence, if you put you book up for sales, you are competing with Amazon itself, and taking a cut out of their profit.
Another plausible approach for Amazon would be to have a buy back option. In essence, you can return the rights to the book to Amazon and get credit towards your next purchase. The downside to this approach would be the loss of sales commission fees on Amazon and loss of revenue. Right now, Amazon will sell you two books and you can’t return one whereas under the above apporach, you return the first book and save some money on the 2nd one.
I think both approaches can work if done right. Obviously Amazon needs to do the financial X’s and O’s to figure out which one is right. But giving Amazon Kindle customers the option to sell back their Kindle books could make Amazon Kindle even more popular. And sometimes, it’s worth it.
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4 comments
#1RickJuly 6, 2008, 5:04 pm
Or, instead of selling back books people can just accept the fact that this is a time of change and they will have to change with it. If you are set in your ways and refuse to adopt a new method, then you will not only be left behind but will suffer even greater when this new technology (ebooks) becomes standard and the price of physical books grows exponentially…not to mention the resell value drops significantly (just ask Pre-Med students about these issues)…
Shift Happens…
#2JohnAugust 6, 2009, 6:06 am
It’s not about change. It’s about a company seeing an opportunity and taking advantage of it. As always, the power is in the consumers’ hands. When we demand the right to sell our ebooks (or we won’t buy them) then we will have that option. Companies offer what the market demands.
I, for one, will not buy any AZW formatted ebooks until I know I can sell them. I have no desire to keep all the books I read. I sell my physical copies. There is no reason that I cannot sell my electronic copies.
Amazon, if you want my money, give me the options I demand. Until then, I have plenty of TXTs and PDFs I can read on my Kindle (yes, I have the big one).
#3@marknanutAugust 29, 2010, 12:59 pm
There may not be any established platforms for selling "used" Kindle books, and perhaps even Amazon's Terms of Service forbid that (I assume, but need to check) – so you'll have problems selling them on Ebay for instance. Still I think you can (and people should start to) sell owned Kindle books via other channels, as long as there is someone willing to buy them (and of course has faith that he's buying from a legitimate owner). But as John mentioned, enough people need to require a platform for selling used Kindle books before someone (not necessarily Amazon) will provide it.
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