Amazon As Master Ebookseller

 iPad or a Kindle?  Which to Buy?

The Kindle Store doesn't care, as long as you buy your ebooks from Aamzon.

It's been just over a year since Amazon's Kindle Store starting two-timing the Kindle ebook reader.

For two years, since the Kindle and the Store appeared in public in November 2007, they had been utterly faithful to each other.  You could only read a Kindle Store ebook if you had a Kindle.  Your Kindle could do nothing without the Store, even as the Store kept stocking up.  Right now, the Store offers more than 720,000 titles, making it the super-est superstore for ebooks.

But a split began in March 2009 when Amazon introduced the world to tiny screen ebook reading in a big way with two apps:  Kindle for iPhone and Kindle for iPod Touch.  

That opened the Kindle Store's"doors" to millions.  Opening the doors to billions came in October 2009 with the Kindle for PC app that lets anyone with a computer buy, download and read a Kindle Store ebook.

Next came the Kindle for Blackberry app, reinforcing in a huge way the concept of reading a novel on a tiny screen.

In March, the Store flirted again with the supposed" enemy" by adding Kindle for Mac.

Then things looked really bad for the Kindle ereader when the Store blatantly wooed the showy iPad in April with the Kindle for iPad app.  Next the Kindle for Android app clarified for the world that the Kindle Store is beholden to no ebook reader, and in love with them all.

And the Kindle Store is not possessive:  You can read any ebook you buy on any gadget of your choice.  Even better, you can read your books on all your gadgets.

The icing on that gadgetry cake is that Amazon keeps track of where you are in each book.  So, so you can read 2 chapters on your Kindle, pick up where you left off on your iPhone, move to your iPad without losing your place, knock out a few more pages of an exciting book on your Blackberrry, and wrap it all up on your PC.

That kind of intimate customer care is why Amazon.com is the biggest seller of ebooks in the world,.  But that is only the beginning of its services.

If you so much as look at a book in the Kindle Store, Amazon remembers.  First, on the page of the book you chose, the company shows you half a dozen titles of related interest, hoping you will buy more.  Other Kindle book buyers play a hand in the sales push to you:  You're shown books which others who bought your target book also bought.

You'll also be seeing books in related subject areas to your target book, as well as other books by the same author.

After you finally leave the Kindle Store, you will get an occasional email from Amazon, offering you books that tie into the target book you looked at or even bought.

That can be intrusive for some people, being "hounded" by a bookseller frenzied to sell you more books.  However, Amazon handles its approaches both on screen and in emails deftly.  Although the Kindle Store does not reveal its wiles and ways, I've noted that ignoring certain emails that are obviously keyed to a "target" book I looked at results in Amazon tailing off emails to me on that subject.

Just as impressive, Amazon's computer programmers seem to have set their system to approach me more often if I respond to a title.  Recently, peeking at Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design,   triggered a small stream of emails offering other books on theoretical physics and cosmology.  But I was finished snooping around those subjects, and the emails--always polite and never intrusive--stopped.

Like any excellent human bookseller who comes to recognize you when you step into his store, the Kindle Store is wonderfully helpful in other ways if you are just browsing but have no particular book in mind.  A well-organized listing on the left hand Kindle Store entry page is only too happy to quickly take you to whatever you want to see.

For example,want to see the Kindle Store's bestsellers, both paid and free.  Click.  Notice that the Kindle Store shows you the top of the bestseller lists for both paid and free titles, side by side.

 But if you prefer the New York Times lineup of bestsellers, they pop before your eyes at a click of the mouse.  The same is true if you want to see what Amazon's editors recommend, or see what Oprah is recommending.  You might want to look at award winners, or old books being revived in the AmazonEncore program.

Anything in the store exclusive to Kindle?  Yes, indeed, take a look.
Want free ebooks?  Amazon offers scads of them, and links you to another 2.5 million freebies to scan.

Cutting the "deck" of books offered in the Kindle Store yet another way, you are presented a list of genres and can click your way into that section of the store.  Under "Children's Ebooks," the store proves it's interested in more than your money:  Today three of the first four titles listed are free:  mega-bestseller James Patterson's Daniel X: Demons and Druids,  bestseller Bill Myers' On the Run and a preview from Cornelia Funke, Reckless.

So if you're agonizing over which device to buy for ebook reading, stop worrying on one count.  If you buy your ebooks from the Kindle Store, you can read them on anything you darn well please.

In fact, that freedom of movement makes a case for anyone who has the budget for it to load up on their devices.  Buy the Kindle and you own a dedicated ebook reader that is easy on the eyes, is light weight to hold while reading at length, and is beautifully readable in even bright sunlight.  Buy the iPad and get color, video and visual pizzazz that the Kindle--at the moment--does not, plus games and apps for just about everything.

Get 'em both in your household if you can afford it, and enjoy the best of all the possible ereader worlds.