In a campaign aimed to help "people to understand what Amazon is doing and make an informed choice to have choice," Pages & Pages Booksellers, in Mosman, Australia, just north of Sydney, is offering what it calls a "Kindle amnesty." On the third Saturday of every month, customers who purchase a BeBook e-reading device from the store and trade in a Kindle at the same time, will receive a $50 gift voucher.
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| photo: Mosman Daily | |
In the announcement, general manager Jon Page, who is also president of the Australian Booksellers Association, noted that in Australia, Amazon has more than 65% of the e-book market and more than 75% of e-reading devices. "Kindle has become the default term for an e-reader but most readers don't understand that it is an Amazon product and there are other, better, reading devices on the market." They also don't understand that "the Kindle locks them into buying from Amazon only. Amazon limits readers' choices and walls them into their garden. But you don't have to be."
By contrast, Pages & Pages sells e-books and e-readers that work on "any tablet or smart phone as well as all other non-Kindle e-readers like the Sony eReader or Kobo device…. Come in for a demonstration. Pages & Pages are also happy to set up any device for e-reading. Unlike Amazon, Pages & Pages can give face-to-face customer service and advice. There is also a bin in store for old Kindles."
Unlike Amazon, Pages & Pages, he said, also "support local schools, pay taxes in Australia, employ local people, give Mosman Village character, respect readers privacy, none of which Amazon does."
Page said, too, that e-books are "not a threat to physical bookshops. This new format presents bookshops and readers with many wonderful opportunities to sell and read more books. What does threaten bookshops is a company who engages in uncompetitive behaviour, pays no tax in Australia and misleads readers with restrictive devices and fake book reviews."