Kindle TouchToday was the official launch of Amazon’s Kindle Matchbook program, which allows you to buy inexpensive ($3 or less) e-book versions of print books that you’ve previously purchased. They were bragging that over 70,000 titles were already available, and I was pretty excited to see which e-books I’d be eligible for — particularly because many of the books I buy on Amazon are gifts, and so I don’t actually have a copy of them at all. Since I almost always feel the evil temptation to gently, carefully read a book before giving it as a present, I wouldn’t have to feel bad about rebuying the e-book version!

Anyway, that was what I thought until I looked up the actual list of Matchbook titles available to me, and found… five random, dusty old books, including the third (and only the third) installment of a trilogy that’s all from the same publisher. Over at ReadWriteWeb, they reported similar results: five oddball titles, some going back years, nothing good. Is this just a coincidence, or are they starting everyone out with five kinda lame choices? Doesn’t seem like a great way to launch this much-hyped service.

Have you had better results than I have? Tell us if Matchbook is working for you, and which titles you’re excited to add to your e-book library!

Stephanie Perry
Latest posts by Stephanie Perry (see all)