From Lisa Ogg at the Queensland Writers’ Centre:
Australian Society of Authors has spoken out about the international version of the Amazon Kindle. Basically, the deal is that Australian Kindle users will have to pay at least 20 per cent more than Americans for books on the Amazon e-book readers. Not cool, huh?
The average e-book would cost $US13.99 for Australians, 40 per cent more than the American price of $US9.99.
“As I understand at this point in time, Amazon asks for a very, very big discount from publishers for their works to be included in Kindle so that the return coming back to the publisher is smaller and the return coming back to the author is smaller … The person making the most money is Amazon,” said Jeremy Fisher of the Australian Society of Authors.
Don't use Kindle, never would. I think it is too expensive in the first place. But then I have a Palm Zire 31 on which I can load readers of various kinds for free and then download ebooks from places like Fictionwise.com where the prices are reasonable. I have a fairly extensive library of ebooks.
Owning the Palm ensures I always have a book with me, games, addresses of all and sundry, a calendar, lots of notes and reminders, etc. etc. etc.