Amazon rolls out Kindle MatchBook: About 75k print books bundled with discounted ebooks

Amazon officially launched Kindle MatchBook, its previously announced program that lets publishers and authors bundle print books with discounted digital editions. A little under 75,000 titles are included so far -- up from the 10,000 announced in September.

Readers who bought the included titles in print will have the option to buy the Kindle version for $2.99 or less. Amazon’s release lists some of the “major publishers” making at least a few titles available for the program: “HarperCollins, Macmillan, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amazon Publishing, Wiley, Chronicle Books, and Marvel,” along with “thousands” of titles by self-published authors. Most of the “major publishers” Amazon cites in its release are making very few titles available to the program. A notable exception is HarperCollins, which is including over 9,000 titles in the program. Just nine of those were published in the last 90 days, suggesting this is largely a play to spur ebook sales of older titles.