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VIDEO: What Do You Think About Amazon's eBook Matching Service?

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User Experience Researcher
Additional contributions by Dan Leadbetter and Louis Ramirez.

In addition to announcing that the Kindle Paperwhite will see an update (which may in turn result in the first Paperwhite deal ever), Amazon unveiled its Kindle Matchbook service this week. Starting in October, shoppers will be able to get eBook copies of hard copy books they already own, either for a small fee or for completely free. It'll even retroactively apply to books that were purchased as far back as 1995 — when Amazon first started selling books.

In this brief — yet lively — video, our experts discuss the features of the service and ponder how it'll affect future purchases.

What about you, readers? Tell us what you think about Amazon's Kindle Matchbook by leaving us a comment below!

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User Experience Researcher

Jeff Somogyi is the DealNews User Experience Researcher. Since working here he's written deals, features, promotional and newsletter copy, blog posts, as well as scripts for our videos. Follow him on Google+, Twitter at @sommerjam or his blog.
DealNews may be compensated by companies mentioned in this article. Please note that, although prices sometimes fluctuate or expire unexpectedly, all products and deals mentioned in this feature were available at the lowest total price we could find at the time of publication (unless otherwise specified).
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10 comments
jcauthorn
I agree with Jeff S. here. It's nice, you don't have to pay full price for it over again, and it certainly makes for a more loyal customer knowing that option is there. I've had a few movies where I've paid the theater, paid for the book, paid for the soundtrack, paid for the score (yes, score and soundtrack are different), paid for the vhs, paid for the dvd, then paid for the blu-ray (Star Wars for instance). This makes one part of it more attractive/more affordable. What's with all the complaints? Your option is to buy it at full price all over again like in my example? Even Vudu allows you to upgrade from a DVD to HD for $5 vs $2 for dvd quality, which is a similar deal. This is called DEALNEWS after all.
On the other hand....The license to use the digital stuff expires when you expire or your account gets cancelled for violating the terms of service. This is perhaps the biggest reason people will continue to buy physical products, myself included.
September 5, 2013
cindypaul
This is great, i already purchase books that i really like in printed and digital becuase i like the ease of have my library at my fingertips but i also like to OWN the book and be able to have it if something goes wrong. What would be really great is if they refund you for all or part of E-books that you already purchased even though you had bought the printed copy first. That would be great!
September 5, 2013
r9blake
When I buy a book I own that book outright. I can sell it, give it away, bequeath it through my will. When I "buy" an ebook from Amazon or B&N or Apple, do I have the same rights, or have I only purchased a license to keep a copy (or access it from their servers) for my lifetime. No doubt the answer is buried in some license agreement. (Oh yes, I never had to agree to terms to buy a book or magazine or newspaper.)
September 4, 2013
docrbk
I reread lots of the books I buy (hard cover of books I really, really "want")...in fact, I often have the audiobooks, too (now that Amazon owns Audible, maybe they would extend this type of deal). It would be nice if, for a nominal fee, I could add some of my hard cover books to digital (for convenience sake) and even more so if, upon new (or old) purchases, the audiobook would be inexpensive...audio and reading are really two very different experiences and I often (as with, say A Song of Ice and Fire series, Wheel of Time series, and Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series) will read, then listen, then reread...and each time around pick up on some subtleties that I missed the "other way". Many of these are available semi-bootleg for free, anyway...I wouldn't pay the full price for the ebook, but if the author can get a buck additional from me, not a bad thing at all.
September 4, 2013
westcoastpatriot
Never mind, I see it's Amazon-purchased only.
September 4, 2013
westcoastpatriot
I've been eager to reclaim the space that bookshelf takes up, but didn't want to foot the bill entirely, so I think of this as a good deal. I'm wondering, is it only amazon-purchased paper books that qualify? or are 3rd-party purchased books eligible?
September 4, 2013
pmrjulio
I agree with Jeff comment in the video. The fact that they are selling the electronic copy you own for a discounted price (and in some cases free) is a plus. It is not like we bought back in the 90's-00's a print/ebook copy, and they are now changing us for something we paid. For instance if we have a DVD and we want the electronic version now(iTunes or Ultraviolet), we need to buy it again.
September 4, 2013
Lindsay Sakraida (DealNews)
Is no one considering the gifting possibilities?! "Oh, Happy Birthday Mom! Here's that book I've always wanted!" [Discretely downloading the eBook to my own computer.]
September 4, 2013
MWFplus3
What's not to like? Gives me a great option if I want to have a digital version of a book I purchased from Amazon in the past....will wait to see which price applies to the books I purchased, but regardless, it's nice to have the option.
September 4, 2013
therealpae
This is awesome, I was just talking to my friend this morning about how much I love digital books, and that I just got rid of 300+ books at my last move, books are great but they take up a lot of space and are also heavy! I love me Kindle!
September 4, 2013