Amazon announced a new Kindle-related service today. The announcement concerns 5 gigs of storage for documents. You may have sent pdfs to be read on your Kindle previously, but this new service expands this opportunity.
In a development I consider of greater significance, Amazon now allows Kindle users to select an option that automatically provides access to updates of books they have purchased. This capability offers some meaningful opportunities that extend far beyond error correction.
My wife and I have a Kindle book (our transition from traditional publishing to self publishing is explained in a series of posts you can read if interested). One of our motives for this move was the pattern and delay in traditional publishing of textbooks. As a textbook author, you work frantically every three years to generate the next edition. This is not ideal. Why not write continuously as relevant developments occur and push them out to those who purchase your book (or at least provide online updates as an alternative). This is simply not the way the book business works and a significant liability if your writing focuses on a field that changes quickly; e.g., educational technology. In addition, the purchase of a book that automatically updates means the content you have will remain current. We consider our book a textbook, but the upgrade feature also allows us to argue the book has value as a reference.
You should find a link to control this feature (default is off) from the Amazon "manage content and devices" page.
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