Kindle First - New Books, at No Cost to Prime Members

Amazon's approach to combining publishing with sales, marketing, and merchandising sometimes surprises.  With its new Kindle First, the company once again innovates and leaves traditional publishing in the dust.

Kindle First, a new program announced by the company on Friday, offers Amazon Prime members access to a few selected new books completely free, ahead of their official publication dates.

Here's how it works, according to Amazon:
Each month, editors at Amazon Publishing select books from among the retailer's most popular categories. Those books are available one month ahead of their official release. Along with each title are a note of recommendation and a behind-the-scenes view of the book and its author. Just choose the title you want to download, and it's added to your Kindle library.

Prime members can sign up to receive an e-mail each month that details the new titles available at no cost. As with all other Kindle titles, the book you select can be read on any device equipped with Amazon's free Kindle app.

The first titles available to Prime members can be viewed here.