Amazon opens Spanish, Italian Kindle stores

Amazon began offering digital books in Spanish and Italian for the Kindle on Thursday and selling Spanish- and Italian-language versions of the electronic book reader.

The Seattle-based online retail giant said more than 22,000 Kindle books in Spanish were among the 900,000 titles available at the Spanish Kindle Store including 20 of the top 30 El Cultural fiction and non-fiction best sellers.

The Spanish Kindle Store also offers books in Catalan, Basque and Galician, Amazon said in a statement, and over 1,000 free classics in Spanish.

The first Spanish-language Kindle costs 99 euros ($134).

Amazon said the Italian Kindle Store offers 16,000 Italian-language Kindle books including works by Roberto Saviano, Tiziano Terzani and Umberto Eco and current best sellers such as the biography of Apple's Steve Jobs.

The first Italian-language Kindle also sells for 99 euros.

Amazon also said that independent Spanish and Italian authors and publishers can use Kindle's direct publishing feature to make their books available in the Spanish and Italian Kindle Stores.

(c) 2011 AFP