Amazon bolsters Kindle catalog, inks pact with Simon & Shuster

Amazon said Friday that the Kindle will get 5,000 additional titles from Simon & Shuster for its e-book library.

Simon & Shuster is a unit of CBS, which is buying CNET, parent of ZDNet.

With the Simon & Shuster deal, Amazon adds titles like Stephen R. Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” The companies said the "great percentage" of Simon & Shuster's backlist will be on the Kindle by the end of 2008.

In a statement, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos outlined a few Kindle details and reiterated comments made at the D6 conference earlier this week. Among the notable nuggets:

• After a Kindle purchase (all resources), customers increase their total book purchases 2.6 percent times;
• Kindle books account for 6 percent of book units that have both Kindle and physical versions;
• Amazon's goal is to put every book into an eBook.

Simon & Schuster picked its titles based on popular sales of physical books over the last 12 months on Amazon. Terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.

Also see:Does the Kindle have iPod-ish potential?

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