Kindle Matchbook - Amazon Pairs Physical and Electronic Books

Today Amazon announced that it will pair purchases of physical books with a low-priced Kindle ebook, a practice they are calling Kindle Matchbook. As the press release noted,

"Bundling print and digital has been one of the most requested features from customers. With Kindle MatchBook, they can keep their favorite book on their shelf, and have a copy in their digital library for reading, perhaps re-reading it with features like X-Ray and Popular Highlights."

 As the New York Times noted, the success of the program depends on whether authors, readers, and publishers embrace it, since it has not announced the Matchbook idea to publishers at the time of the press release.

But such a pairing simply makes sense to many readers who love to have physical books on their shelves but don't care much for toting a dozen books in their carry-on luggage when they vacation.  I have long wondered when a major distributor would begin a program like Kindle Matchbook, and  now that litigation over Apple's collusion with publishers is over, the time may be right for distributors to take control over book format marketing and sales, and promote them to determine what the market wants. Amazon has long favored loss-leaders to capture market share. That it might lead on this idea made sense to me.