Amazon's New Kindle Fire Costs More to Makes Than it Sells For

It retails for $199, but reports say it costs nearly $210 to make.

Citing new estimates from HIS iSuppli said the components used in making the Kindle Fire cost $191.65 and additional manufacturing costs bring the total cost to $10 over the list price.

Good news for shareholders, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) has a potential upside of 14.4% based on a current price of $216.23 and an average consensus analyst price target of $247.46.

Amazon.com is currently above its 50-day moving average (MA) of $211.62 and above its 200-day of $192.88.

Toshiba 300GB External Hard Drive Deal Today on Amazon

Get them while you can at this great price.

Digital Books More Popular Than Paperbacks on Amazon

The digital book has overtaken the paper book on Amazon.com. And this time that isn't only true about hardcover books. Now we're talking paperbacks.

Amazon said that it was selling more Kindle books than paperback books, though the score is still close. Since January 1, for every 100 paperback books Amazon sold, 115 Kindle books were sold. To top it off, the company says that since the beginning of the year it's sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books. Amazon noted that this data was from "across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business and includes sales of books where there is no Kindle edition." It added that free Kindle books were excluded from the tally.
This is the first time it's said that Kindle books were outselling paperbacks, which typically cost significantly less than hardcovers. As usual, Amazon didn't report exact sales and would only say that it had sold "millions of third-generation Kindle devices."  Some say it's around 8-million.

As for total numbers, all Amazon would say was that it currently has 810,000 books in the Kindle Store and that doesn't include the millions of free, out-of-copyright, pre-1923 books that are also available as e-books.  They also keep saying more are on the way.

If you haven't started reading digitally yet, it's only a matter of time.



Amazon's Christmas Ordering Cutoffs

If you are waiting for the last minute to complete your Christmas shopping, Amazon.com is there for you.

Here is their list of deadlines heading into Christmas:

Order on Amazon

Amazon Announces the Top Music of 2010

Amazon.com today announced its picks for best music of 2010. The list includes the editors' picks for the Top 100 Albums of the Year, Top 100 Customer Favorites and a breakdown of Best of the Year lists in a variety of musical genres. To see all of the Best of 2010 music lists go to www.amazon.com/bestmusic2010.  Some surprises made the lists.

"From the stunning debut of editors' pick Broken Bells, to the triumphant return of customer favorite Eminem, we heard a lot of great music this year," said Craig Pape, director of Music at Amazon.com. "Our Best Music of 2010 lists are designed to help customers navigate through the rich selection of releases and discover new artists they might not normally pick on their own."

The Best of the Year Music Store is now live on Amazon.com, offering customers a large variety of music to browse, along with unique lists such as "50 outstanding albums of 2010 you may have missed."

"Creating Amazon's Best of the Year music list is a big process, but it is a lot of fun for the music team. We dig into music in every genre we can think of," said Jeff Reguilon, a music editor at Amazon.com. "From rock to pop, to new age, country and everything in between, we do our best to highlight awesome music that we think our customers will love."

Top 10 music editors' picks for best albums of the year:

1. Mumford & Sons, "Sigh No More"

2. Arcade Fire, "The Suburbs"

3. The Black Keys, "Brothers"

4. The National, "High Violet"

5. LCD Soundsystem, "This Is Happening"

6. Kanye West, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy"

7. Broken Bells, "Broken Bells"

8. Vampire Weekend, "Contra"

9. Deerhunter, "Halcyon Digest"

10. Big Boi, "Sir Lucious Left Foot... The Son of Chico Dusty"

Top 10 customer favorites for 2010:

1. Taylor Swift, "Speak Now"

2. Lady Antebellum, "Need You Now"

3. Arcade Fire, "The Suburbs"

4. Susan Boyle, "The Gift"

5. Eminem, "Recovery"

6. Kanye West, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy"

7. Sade, "Soldier of Love"

8. James Taylor and Carole King, "Live At The Troubadour"

9. Vampire Weekend, "Contra"

10. Mumford & Sons, "Sigh No More"