Amazon's Kindle store comes to India: What's cheap, what's not

Now that the Kindle store isavailable in India as well, Indian book lovers can get e-books for some great bargains. The books are now available in India rupees as well so you can forget about paying in dollars. The Kindle e-reader is now available in India and Croma’s stores all over will be selling the device as well. The device costs only Rs 6999, so if your book-shelf is over-flowing and you have no space left in your tiny apartment to stack books, the e-reader is a cheap and convenient option.

The Kindle store is also a great space for those who are unable to find certain books in India or the only versions that are available are way too expensive. We decided to check out some popular books and compare their e-book price to the prices on Flipkart and Indiaplaza.

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Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi costs only Rs 112.57 in the e-book version on the Kindle store. Flipkart is slightly more expensive for Rs 140 while Indiaplaza is the closest in terms of price, at Rs 121.

Game of Thrones by George RR Martin costs only Rs 259 on Indiaplaza and Rs 287 on Flipkart. The Kindle e-book price is again cheaper, only Rs 247.

[caption id=“attachment_427325” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The Kinder e-reader is also now directly available in India and Croma’s stores all over will be selling the device as well. AFP[/caption]

Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies costs Rs 252.85 on the Kindle store thus making it a tad more expensive than Flipkart (where the price is Rs 239) but still cheaper than Indiaplaza where it costs Rs 299.

The popular Fifty shades of Grey series by EL James costs only Rs 641.84 on the Kindle store. This is for all three books. On Flipkart users will have to shell out Rs 699 while Indiaplaza has the complete set for Rs 649.

Chetan Bhagat’s latest best-seller, What Young India Wants is available for Rs 81.92 only on the Kindle store. The books costs Rs 98 on both Flipkart and Indiaplaza.

Someone like Junot Diaz is much more expensive on Kindle costing nearly Rs 765.61 for the The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The books are cheaper on Flipkart and Indiaplaza priced at Rs 599 and Rs 674 respectively.

It seems popular authors are a little cheaper on Kindle. You might find some modern classics like Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 to be much more expensiveon Kindle than on Flipkartfor instance.

Good news for Graphic novel lovers. The Dark Knight Returns, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books, _ V for Vendetta_are way cheaper on KindleStore. Sadly Watchmen is still more expensive on Kindle.

Access to the Kindle store in India means that you can download books to your device and read books while on the go. Since the tablet doesn’t cost that much, it shouldn’t be a bad option to consider given that you can access quite a variety of books. The Kindle e-reader should definitely make travel much lighter for those don’t have the budget for an iPad and don’t want to spend on an Android tablet.

Now that Amazon has launched the Kindle store in India, hopefully the Kindle Touch and Fire should soon follow. After all, India is a growing market for tablet users.