Kindle eBook store quietly launches in Canada, but where is the Fire?

Daniel Bader

December 7, 2012 3:09pm


The Kindle eBook store has quietly launched in Canada, but there is no indication that Amazon will bring the Fire tablet series to our humble land.

This morning, Digital Reader discovered that the company had added Kindle eBooks to its main sidebar and, once visited, showcases top Canadian authors such as Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood, all priced in Canadian dollars. While it was previously possible to important a Kindle eReader from the States and purchase books, all transactions were performed in USD through the U.S. market, and users lacked located curated sources such as the Globe & Mail Bestseller list and the aforementioned Canadian author showcase.

So this begs the question: is Amazon planning to launch its Kindle Fire tablets in Canada in the coming weeks? Considering it wouldn’t be much of a value proposition without the addition of movie, television and music purchases, I’d imagine not. But you never know: Amazon is next to Apple in terms of content distribution, and could quickly become the second-biggest ecosystem very quickly, especially if they get in ahead of Google in offering music downloads.

Amazon does point out that Canadians can download its Kindle apps on any number of platforms, including iOS, Android and Windows 8 tablets. A soft launch is better than none at all, so let’s see what comes in the next few weeks.

Source: Digital Reader
Via: TheNextWeb



  • astudent

    Mmmm I wonder how Indigo will retaliate.

    I don’t know about anyone else here but I am just ecstatic at my local library’s ebook collection and its epub! So ebook stores, not my scene just yet.

  • Ryanalexander

    I was able to sign up for an American Prime account last week using my Canadian address. Which I thought was strange. You’d think if they were going to do this, they’d want to announce it ASAP, before holiday buying is done. But hey, Amazon’s nuts.

  • guimmer

    Whats new? I have been using Kindle for a few years.

  • guimmer

    Nice addition I just noticed are french Books.

  • Rich

    I imagine it’s nothing to brag about, yet. Kind of like how Amazon.ca is nothing in comparison to .com.

  • EvanKr

    Honestly a Kindle Fire has no appeal to me. The N7 is a vastly superior product for the same price. Sure the original fire arguably started the original sub $200 tablet craze, but it’s since been surpassed by other devices.

  • deltatux

    Been using Amazon.com to buy my eBooks on Kindle since I got my tablet, what difference would this make? Is it any cheaper?

  • Bas

    So I guess I’d pay tax now, and in CAN $ over no tax and US $?

    I also wonder if there’s any difference in the purchase from a DRM/content point of view. Do I have “US purchases” right now and if I buy from the Canadian store I’ll have “CAD Purchases” ?

    • didyouknowthat

      when it comes to DRM/content Calibre and Google are your friends

  • Stephen K

    Not really a big deal as we have been able to make Kindle purchases for a while. Where is the mp3 store and the video store? Bring this to Canada so I don’t have to use a VPN to purchase and I would be happy!

  • Bilal Akhtar

    Thanks Amazon, now bring the Kindle Paperwhite here.

  • Andrew

    for those of you as confused as I was, the difference is that there is now a kindle section on amazon.ca as opposed to the kindle.com site that you used to have to go to. For a particular ebook i’ve been looking at, it is now $3 cheaper on the .ca site than the current amazon.com price (with a Canadian associated account). [Specifically “the signal and the noise” by nate silver, has been (since i started watching it) at $18.99 or so CAD ebook priced, which is about $6 more expensive than the same thing on the american site ($12.99 USD, call it the same in CAD for arguments sake). Currently the amazon.com (for american’s) price is still $12.99, but the same book on amazon.ca is $15.99 CAD (ebook). So prices have improved to the tradition $3 surcharge for international versions, even though I have a wifi only paperwhite (imported from the states, but associated with a Canadian account)]

    • spanky

      Bought my k3 years ago while vacationing in the USA. Set up a USA account using a friends address (who lives in California) and have been using a Canadian credit card to make purchases from the Amazon.com kindle section for years – no problems. I only pay the going $ exchange rate and have a bigger selection of books to choose from.

  • Alexander Inglis

    I’ve been a Kindle e-book users since they released the Kindle 2 in Nov 2009. My Amazon.com account keeps active because of Kindle products (mostly ebooks) even though, for a variety of reasons, I have embraced Kobo (the Kobo Glo is the best ereader on the market currently).

    I see they want me to “transfer” my ebooks to Amazon.ca; I guess I am ok with that. Amazon.com already parses titles by country so I don’t suppose I will be able to buy fewer titles going through the Amazon.ca “skin”.

    But Amazon is on the move. They opened an additional 200,000 sq ft fulfillment centre in BC this summer, and launched an Amazon Visa for Canadians in the spring. Could cloud based services and *gasp* Android apps and mp3 and digital media be far behind? (FWIW: the Kindle app on a Nexus 7 is a terrific ereader experience.)

    • Screw u Samsung

      Who needs Kindle Fire, when you can get a 32GB BlackBerry PlayBook for $139 and the far superior Kobo books.

    • Stephen Austin

      Just make sure you understand all the consequences before you transfer to the Canadian store. If you have any periodical subscriptions, for example, they’ll all be cancelled, and you’ll lose access to back issues.

    • Will Hogan

      Unfortunately, the selection is affected by switching to the Canadian store. I’ve encountered books that are available as Kindle editions on the American site but not the Canadian. It didn’t take long, it happened with the second book I wanted to purchase after switching.

  • Steven Hurdle

    Might be too little, too late. Kobo now has majority marketshare in both e-reader sales, and e-book sales, in Canada according to market research firms (Ipsos Reid for the hardware side, can’t recall off hand for the e-book side).

    And it’s not just the Kindle Fire, but the last half-dozen Kindle models either have never been released in Canada, or have been released here far later.

  • Alexander Inglis

    Not too little, too late for Kindle at all. Kobo and Kindle each have their own nice e-book eco-system. But you’re not tied to their respective hardware as you are with a smartphone. A lightweight e-ink device like the Kobo Glo ($129) is cheap, efficient and terrific for holidays, carrying around and staying in sync with other devices. But as more and more people acquire 7″ tablets at ~$200, they’ll find ALL their content works just fine, and stays in sync, on Kobo and Kindle using apps. At that point the store you buy your ebooks from becomes less compelling.
http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/12/07/kindle-ebook-store-quietly-launches-in-canada-but-where-is-the-fire/
mobilesyrup.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-48
209332
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:JUR5XRWSPVDNCWYV57RO7JR3GIZOQOYZ
<urn:uuid:d462a0cc-f707-4e1d-86d0-b2b84aba4141>
2015-11-25T10:15:52Z
108.178.2.244
sha1:D43LSZJMXYOF7LGYR6RLSKJ5XNTGGMXZ
<urn:uuid:6ca461c5-180e-450e-a2ad-7ced6b93690b>
http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/12/07/kindle-ebook-store-quietly-launches-in-canada-but-where-is-the-fire/
length
response
<urn:uuid:3d1fd09e-592a-445b-b12b-304f92c84b01>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-71-132-137.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-48
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for Nov 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf