Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos [Amazon CEO]; New York Times, 12/6/09

Deborah Solomon, New York Times; Questions for Jeffrey P. Bezos [Amazon CEO]:

[Solomon:] "Barnes & Noble claims on its Web site that the Nook has several advantages over the Kindle — for one thing, a Nook book can be lent to friends. You can forward the text to another user.

[Bezos:] The current thing being talked about is extremely limited. You can lend to one friend. One time. You can’t pick two friends, not even serially, so once you’ve loaned one book to one friend, that’s it.

[Solomon:] You have to pick just one person? What are you saying? It’s like “Sophie’s Choice”?

[Bezos:] It is “Sophie’s Choice.” Very nicely done...

[Solomon:] Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?

[Bezos:] For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

[Solomon:] How quickly are paper books migrating into their digital equivalents?

[Bezos:] When we launched Kindle two years ago, it was 90,000 titles, and today it’s more than 350,000. We’re adding thousands of titles every week. Our vision is every book ever printed in every language, all available within 60 seconds.

[Solomon:] But so much is missing. I see the so-called Kindle store doesn’t carry “The Catcher in the Rye” or “Franny and Zooey.” Is that because J. D. Salinger has declined to authorize digital editions of his books?

[Bezos:] You’d have to ask him...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06fob-q4-t.html

Amazon.com Offers to Replace Copies of Orwell Book; New York Times, 9/5/09

Miguel Helft via New York Times; Amazon.com Offers to Replace Copies of Orwell Book:

"Amazon invited some unflattering literary analogies earlier this summer when it remotely erased unlicensed versions of two George Orwell novels from its customers’ Kindle reading devices.

Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, apologized to customers for the deletions in July. And late Thursday, the company tried to put the incident behind it, offering to deliver new copies of “1984” and “Animal Farm” at no charge to affected customers.

Amazon said in an e-mail message to those customers that if they chose to have their digital copies restored, they would be able to see any digital annotations they had made. Those who do not want the books are eligible for an Amazon gift certificate or a check for $30, the company said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/05/technology/companies/05amazon.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=amazon%20orwell&st=cse

Amazon Chief Says Erasing Orwell Books Was ‘Stupid’; New York Times Bits Blog, 7/23/09

Vindu Goel via New York Times Bits Blog; Amazon Chief Says Erasing Orwell Books Was ‘Stupid’:

"On Thursday, Amazon’s chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, posted a statement on a customer forum, publicly apologizing for his company’s handling of the situation:

“This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of ‘1984′ and other novels on Kindle. Our ’solution’ to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we’ve received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/amazon-chief-says-erasing-orwell-books-was-stupid/?hp