Wow – Just found out about Amazon Upgrade which lets you pay a fee for books you’ve already bought from amazon, and read them online (Edit: It seems that Amazon has been talking about this since 2005, and that in 2007, they mentioned they had 100,000+ books on Amazon Upgrade already). They do say that after buying an eligible physical book you get the option to get Amazon Upgrade. Here are some of the details from Amazon -
- Start reading the book online while you wait for your physical copy to arrive
- Add highlights, bookmarks, notes, or tags to any page or section of text
- Print pages, and even copy and paste text from the book
- Read your book from any Internet-connected computer, meaning your book is always with you
How long before Amazon expand Amazon Upgrade to getting Kindle Editions of physical books you’ve purchased?
- Amazon Upgrade
Edit: This is obviously limited – however, it’s showing me 4 books that I can ‘amazon upgrade’ and read online. In this case it’s particularly helpful since these are all books lost or left behind in my travels. So instead of $10-$20 or more, I just pay $1.99 or so and get to read my books again. Pretty cool.
Filed under: extensions Tagged: | amazon, amazon new upgrade service
Yes, please. This is one reason I waited as long as I did to buy a Kindle.
There is a catch to the Amazon Upgrade. Customers who purchase the digital copies are allowed to access the books online only a limited amount of times before they are blocked from reading any further. (The blocking message cites copyright infringement concerns). Therefore, if one buys a book with a large number of pages or a complex book (e.g., a book about computer programming language), one is unable to finish reading it, despite having paid for the privilege twice – by buying the hard copy and then the digital version. My advice: save your money. The Amazon Upgrade product is not what it promises to be.
PG JMB