What do Hilary Clinton, Stephen King, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey have in common? Apart from the ability to scare you on occasion that is. The answer is that they have all, in different ways, been the source of good publicity for Amazon’s Kindle reader.

Oprah was a fairly early adopter. As long ago as 2008 she declared that the original Kindle was her “favorite new gadget”. She also interviewed Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, on her show and provided the Kindle with a very favourable review. Amazon’s marketing team must have been ecstatic.

Stephen King, the world’s best selling author, authored a special novella – “Ur” – to commemorate the release of Amazon’s updated reader, the Kindle 2, in February 2009. The plot, without giving the story away, related to the use of the Kindle itself and what happened when an English teacher bought a Kindle for himself after breaking up with his girlfriend. King read extracts from the book live on stage at the official launch of the Kindle 2. More good publicity for Amazon.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his role as Governor of California, introduced a program to make free electronic textbooks available in Californian schools. The program, which has several stages, was first introduced in August of 2009. It appeared that, at least as far as electronic textbooks were concerned, the future had arrived somewhat faster than many people expected it to. At the end of the day, if Arnie thinks that they’re a good idea who’s going to argue with him?

Staying with the educational theme, a Washington think tank – the New Democratic Leadership Council – which numbers Hilary Clinton among its members, released a white paper entitled “A Kindle In Every Backpack”. The paper outlined the benefits of introducing e-book readers and digital textbooks into the in the U.S. education system. Although the report did acknowledge that other devices could be employed the fact that the Kindle was referenced throughout the document, and even included in the title, was great publicity for Amazon.

These are just four examples of the massive exposure the Kindle reader has benefited from. Over the course of 2009, the Kindle attracted a huge amount of publicity, chiefly for itself but also for e-book readers in general. It’s easy to see how the Kindle has managed to achieve a 60% share of the e-book reader market in America.

There are now a lot of companies with their own e-book readers on the market. Whilst many of these incorporate technical specs which, in some areas at least, outperforms the Kindle, there just doesn’t seem to be the same buzz about any of them that existed, and to a large extent still exists, around the Kindle. It really is difficult to imagine where the Kindle Killer is coming from – unless Amazon release the Kindle 4 that is.

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