Amazon has thrown open the doors of its UK ebook store. British-based owners of the Amazon Kindle ebook reader can now download over W-Fi and 3G from amazon.co.uk/kindlestore, and pay in good old-fashioned British pounds.
The new Kindle with 3G and Wi-Fi costs £150, and a Wi-Fi-only version is £110. Pay the extra for 3G, and you get free 3G coverage wherever you are -- even overseas -- so you only pay for the book you're downloading.
Prices range from £8.54 for Terry Pratchett's latest, I Shall Wear Midnight, to £2.70 for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, in case you're the only person in the world who hasn't read it.
Assorted newspapers and magazines can be automatically delivered to your Kindle, including the Daily Telegraph, the Economist, and The Financial Times. They all come with a free 14-day trial.
The new 3G Kindle is the first to be properly supported in Blighty, after the international Kindle allowed you to buy from the US ebook store.
The US store is cheaper but there's not much in it: I Shall Wear Midnight is about 90p cheaper in the US and Hornet's Nest is 60p cheaper. There's about 10p difference between the US and UK versions of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and The Accidental Billionaires, Ben Mezrich's source for the forthcoming Facebook movie The Social Network.
If you own an international Kindle, you'll receive instructions on your device for how to migrate to a UK account and start paying in pounds. To transfer your ebooks and other content to a new Kindle, visit your Kindle management Web page, choose the 'deliver to' option, and select your new Kindle.You can also transfer via USB cable. For full details visit chapter 10 of the online Kindle user guide.
Do you own a Kindle -- or another ebook reader, like the iriver Story, Sony Reader Touch Edition PRS-600 or even the Apple iPad? Tell us about in the comments -- read any good books lately?
Facebook 
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
Twitter 
RSS Feeds 
Send Us Tips 
Comments 7
Add your comment
Green 5 August, 2010 14:44
If you listen very carefully you can hear the entire workforce of Waterstones hanging themselves.
mark2410 5 August, 2010 14:57
i so want one, but ive already got a PRS-600 so how to justify it?
does the kindle handle Word files?
anonymous 5 August, 2010 16:54
I want to know if you can download any eBook in PDF or ePUB format to a Kindle? Or can you only buy books which are digital editions available on Amazon? As an independent digital fiction publisher I make available previously unpublished novels and short stories.. These can be easily downloaded and read on the Sony Reader . If there are as many download possibilities on a Kindle, I might recommend it as an alternative option..
billfred 6 August, 2010 10:54
PDF yes, epub no.
Anonymous 6 August, 2010 18:01
If you use calibre you can convert epub books into the kindle format, however if they're DRM it won't work. I have the same dilemma as mark2410, I have a sony prs-505 and its been a brilliant reader. I have the choice to choose between waterstones, booksonboard and fictionwise (there are others) for books. Yet, I find myself wanting the kindle (especially now that there is a UK version). Ideally Amazon would switch to a drm free epub format (similar to their mp3s) and that would solve everything.
Anonymous 11 August, 2010 15:18
Sold out at Amazon until at least Sept. 8th. Meh. ;(
Anonymous 11 August, 2010 17:14
This is great for me, because my e-book titled THE VIRGIN KING -- that stars Henry VIII and Elizabeth I -- has only been available in the USA.
Great going Amazon!!!
Joe Fullam
THE VIRGIN KING e-Book on Amazon.co.uk - http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Virgin-King-A-Novel/dp/B003UNJZY6/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_1
NYC Paranormal Stories and Photos - http://www.ParanormalNYC.com