Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past ten months or so, you’ll be aware of the huge buzz surrounding the Amazon Kindle ebook reader. Amazon released the Kindle 2 in February 2009 and followed up no more than a few months later with the bigger Kindle DX.

In a timespan of just a few months, the Kindle has gone on to become Amazon’s number one selling product. It currently has an incredible 60% share of the U.S. e-book reader market. In October 2009, Amazon released the Kindle for international customers in over 100 countries outside America. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to expect the Kindle to have a similar level of success in the global market.

Amazon’s Kindle is now virtually synonymous with e-book readers – but it is far from the only show in town. Other manufacturers such as Microsoft, Sony, Apple and Barnes and Noble – to name no more than a few – all have their own readers planned to launch soon. There is set to be very strong competition in the e-book market. In a way, it’s a compliment to Amazon that virtually any e-book reader in development which shows the slightest promise is immediately named the “Kindle Killer”.

The Kindle 2 sells for $ 259. That’s a reduction of $ 100 on the $ 359 launch price. That’s still not cheap. There are many industry watchers who estimate that a ticket price somewhwere in the vicinity of the $ 150 mark is what’s required to allow e-book readers to make the move from the high tech gadget market into the mainstream consumer marketplace. Of course, the added competition that seems set for 2010 will have the effect of lowering e-book reader prices in general, which might mean that we may see the magic $ 150 price point being attained next year.

If you’ve been considering treating yourself to a Kindle but have been holding off due to the cost of the device, then it might be worthwhile looking at the overall financial picture. In general, e-books cost less than old fashioned paper books. They don’t use paper, ink or bindings and have no delivery costs. If you read a book a week then you could pretty much offset the price of your Kindle in a matter of months.

In fact, even better than cheap e-books, it’s possible to download free Kindle ebooks from the Amazon website. A fair number of them are out of copyright classics. The Three Musketeers, Moby Dick, Sherlock Holmes, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, are just a few examples. However, you will also find plenty of modern novels and newer volumes which are being promoted by publishers. Over and above the completely free e-books,the 360,000 Kindle titles available on the Kindle store include a good selection of books which can be had for a purely nominal fee - $ 0.01 is not unusual. You could recoup the cost of your Kindle very quickly by choosing free and low price Kindle books.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,