The Amazon Kindle Fire is due to become THE holiday gift and people will be hard pressed to find one in the retail sphere due to the millions sold via pre-order. The company has been courting magazine publishers for a number of months to get them to commit to the new color platform and iron out agreements. Now that they have some of the big boys wrapped up, such as Conde Nast, they are in prime position to attract many other companies.
One of the big selling points in the Amazon ecosystem is that the company is willing to share more customer details with the publishing companies then Apple does. One of the pitfalls on the way Apple handles all subscriptions via the App Store is that companies no longer receive metrics and statistics on customers. This in turn is spurning advertisers who rely on demographics and raw data in order to gauge interest in specific publications. There is also the small matter of millions of customers using Amazon to purchase books and newspapers on a daily basis with the popular Kindle line of e-readers.
Amazon is starting its own variant of a Newsstand on their Kindle Fire. This will allow customers to browse and purchase magazines exclusively through the application. It will make downloading and finding new issues very easy, it will also automatically sync updated content directly to the device without the need to manually download anything.
Publishers speaking to Good e-Reader off the record have stated that the entire process of dealing with Amazon has been fair. In most cases Amazon will be setting the prices of single and long-term subscription planning and give a modest cut to the publishers. While larger companies such as Conde Nast will have more pull in being able to determine its own prices. Obviously the most popular and biggest publishing companies are the price Amazon has to pay to get them locked up in order to sell smaller companies on their expansive content offerings.
When the Kindle Fire launches there is expected to be over 300 magazine publications available in full color and will have some variants of interactive content, such as videos and audio. Some magazines available at launch are Vanity Fair, Elle, O, The Oprah Magazine, and more. There will also be limited three month trials with magazines such as Vanity Fair, GQ, and Glamour. Most other magazines are mandated by Amazon to give you two weeks of full access.
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.
