Tuesday, December 11,2007 @ 3:05pm
Amazon Kindle gains third-party support
Amazon's hyped Kindle book reader now has third-party support, an electronic book publisher has announced. Fictionwise says that over 15,000 titles are available for the Kindle from its MultiFormat category, including works by the likes of Mark Twain, Franz Kafka and Poppy Z. Brite. Shoppers cannot however download directly to their readers, as they can with official Amazon books: they must either download to their computer first and sync via USB, or else have Fictionwise e-mail books to their Kindle with a 10-cent Amazon surcharge.
The publisher hopes to offer more books for the Kindle, but says the obstacle is that many files formatted for the reader's DRM are currently under complete control by Amazon. In the meantime, Fictionwise is investigating expanded website support, such as bulk book e-mails and a version of the site suited to the Kindle's browser.