Amazon has made the move to enter the lucrative German market with a version of the Amazon bookstore localized for Germany. They also will be accepting new authors and publishers seeking to get their books in the store with the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service.
When Amazon soon launches their German eBook Store they will have 650,000 titles, 71 of 100 Spiegel bestsellers, and over 25,000 German-language titles with thousands of German classics downloadable for free only on Kindle.
Until now, Amazon has been selling tangible books in Germany but this is the first time they are starting to sell ebooks.
If you are an Indy author or publishing company you can now submit books in German to the new store. They will allow you to keep up to 70% of every book sale, as per their normal agreements.
“German publishers and authors can now take advantage of Kindle Direct Publishing to reach a wider audience and make more money on every book sold,” said Greg Greeley, vice president, European Retail. “U.S. and U.K. authors have had tremendous success with KDP and we’re hopeful German authors and publishers will take advantage of both the increased reach and revenue that KDP has to offer.”
Customers can start shopping our new German ebookstore at www.amazon.de/kindlebuecher, and can learn more about our Kindle and Kindle 3G devices at www.amazon.de/kindleWi-Fi and www.amazon.de/kindle3G.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.