Don’t hold your breath waiting for Amazon to give you Kindle copies of your books

Amazon caused a stir when it announced a two-for-one policy that will give a free digital album to anyone who buys a CD. The policy applies to past purchases — even if you bought the CD 10 years ago — which touched off a flurry of speculation that Amazon might do the same for books. In this perfect world, Amazon would add free Kindle copies for every book people have ordered through the website, giving loyal customers a digital version of their home library. Alas, the chance of this happening is about as good as 50 Shades of Grey winning the Pulitzer prize.

• First, Amazon has sold far more books than it has CD’s, meaning the cost of providing matching digital versions is likely prohibitive.
• And second, Amazon doesn’t have a big strategic incentive to do so. Unlike music, where it lags behind Apple and Google, the company is already dominant in digital book retailing and doesn’t need to fight for market share. While the company will do anything it can do to preserve its advantage in books, the more pressing task for Amazon is to keep muscling in on cloud-based music and entertainment services.