Well, I can see how if you've got a demographic that isn't buying from Amazon, but buys books at Target or Walmart, then putting an e-book reader at that point of sale can be an advantage. I also have a hard time picturing Amazon selling the Kindle anywhere other than on their site, since that means giving up a big chunk of revenue.
But....
Can someone explain to me how a group that reads a lot, but apparently does not spend a lot of money on books and are not tech-savvy, is:
a) likely to drop $200 - 300 on an e-book reader
b) going to prefer using intermediary software, rather than getting delivery right from the point of purchase and/or buying the books right on the device
c) likely to be a big source of revenue for books
It can be good to have a lot of market share, and I do hope that e-books will serve a market like this. But in many ways it's better to dominate the segment of the market that drives most of the revenues -- as you get more profit with lower overhead. You'd think a professional analyst would be able to figure that one out.
