The book-selling powerhouse Amazon has announced Kindle Matchbook. The program means anyone who buys a paperbook unlocks access to a cheap Kindle version of that book. Cheap or free. Of course, the Kindle book needs to be available in the first place.
Amazon says there are thousands of qualifying books and that your past and future purchases could be valid. Prizes range from $2.99, $1.99, $0.99 and free.
What does this mean for RPG publishers? Last night I fired over some emails to a range of publishers and retailers in the industry space. Fred Hicks of Evil Hat got back in a flash.
Does this change your approach to Kindle or epublishing?
Evil Hat has been doing exactly this since 2006. We are happy to see Amazon following in our footsteps.
Does it change our approach? … No. Why would it? It IS our approach! :)
Are you part of the program?
We will be, but they launched it the same day as preschool started up, so we haven’t gotten the chance to look into its configuration yet.
Is this good for gaming?
It’s great. Heck, it has BEEN great for the last several years as we found other game publishers who thought the same way and founded the Bits & Mortar initiative.
If anything it’s a chance for more gamers to be aware that stuff like this is already out there — and for more game publishers to come around to this line of thinking.
Is this a good move by Amazon?
It’s brilliant. It rewards those who buy within the Amazon ecosystem and motivates more customers to stay within it.
We’d love to see more things like Bits & Mortar where the format — PDF, typically — isn’t proprietary, but we totally understand why Amazon would want to drive people more and more to using their Kindles.
