No Kindle for Canadians

Today's Globe and Mail dedicated the entirety of page three to an article about Kindle's absence in Canada even as it is launched internationally in over 100 countries. Mostly, this short article explains that no one has really been able to explain why the Kindle will not be available here yet, even though Amazon has a strong presence here and Canadians have some of the highest fiction reading demographics in the world. 

The Globe's largest insight into the delay is the suggestion that competition between our major wireless carriers and out of date infrastructure may be the cause. 

For Canadians, this is obviously extremely frustrating; not only for consumers but fledgling e-books publishing houses that would love to take advantage of the broad appeal of the Kindle name. According to the New York Times "Kindle titles were now 48 percent of total book sales in instances where Amazon sold both a digital and physical copy of a book. That was up from 35 percent last May" leaving our market noticeably and predictably behind. 

Hopefully, soon more information will be available about why Canada does not have access to the Kindle, even if it is the more costly International version. Otherwise, companies like Sony with its less popular reader may have the upper hand in our growing marketplace.