However, the success of electronic sales over Christmas might be taken with a pinch of salt when contemplating the implications it will have on the future of paper books, as with Amazon not releasing any official sales figures, it is believed that the statistics only refer to Christmas Day – a day when the majority of people buying books are doing so to test out their new Kindles.

Meanwhile, the company is readying the Kindle DX e-reader (pictured) for an Australian launch next week, with the next-generation device targeted at students and newspaper readers.

The DX has a screen with 2.5 times the surface area of the original Kindle, supposedly making it ideal for newspaper, magazine and textbook readers, although downloads do not contain pictures.

The Kindle DX will ship in Australia on January 19. The original Kindle was launched in Australia last October, with the federal government warning in November that e-reader technology will put the printing industry under “strong competitive pressure”.

Read the original article at www.printweek.com.

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