I recently posted about a Kindle version of one of Bernard Cornwell’s books that was full of errors introduced by the conversion system.

I brought it to Bernard’s attention. Needless to say he was distressed to hear about such a poor quality version of his work being put on the market. He has had words with his publisher and I’m told that version has now been removed.

As is usually the case, this is technology launched before the problems/difficulties with the system had been ironed out. We’re already on the third model of the Kindle, with a lightweight, cheaper one just launched and a more expensive colour version (called Kindle Fire) on its way from the States.

Amazon is clearly investing very heavily in the hardware and its Fire will no doubt substantially undercut the Apple iPad as Amazon’s marketing plan seems to be to make very little profit on the hardware, but use it to trap consumers into buying its content.

As far as I know the hardware is fine, but it’s a pity that the same investment hasn’t been made into improving the software so that books can be uploaded more easily without introducing errors.