Amazon began business in 1995 as an online bookseller and continues to this day to sell physical books and e-books to millions of customers globally. It also released its first Kindle e-book reader in 2007, before going on to launch additional Kindle devices such as the Paperwhite, Oasis, and Scribe. On top of that, the behemoth acquired audiobook service Audible in 2008, followed by social reading site Goodreads in 2013.
Amazon even offers an entire platform for creators who want to publish their own books on demand, in both print and digital form.
So yes, its interest in books its big.
And it’s just become even bigger with the launch this week of Your Books, described by Amazon as “a personalized space to explore all of your print, Kindle, and Audible books, receive recommendations based on your reading tastes, and gain insights into your reading habits.”
It’s also designed to encourage you to make more book purchases. On Amazon, naturally.
Your Books features include a Library tab that shows all of the books you’ve ever purchased, borrowed, or saved across print books, Kindle, and Audible. You can organize your library based on categories such as genres, authors, or series, enabling you to surface which categories you like the most and may want to explore further.
The Library section will also search through Amazon’s vast collection of titles and serve up recommendations based on your reading history.
There’s also a Saved Books section that brings together all of the books that you’ve saved to any Amazon Wish List. Here you can filter the results to show books based on price ranges, subscription eligibility, genre interests, and more. You’ll also find book recommendations here, too.
Your Books also has a Discovery Mode that transforms the page into a bookstore tailored to your reading tastes. Switch to the Genres view and you’ll see suggestions for books from specific genres that you already enjoy. Additionally, the Similar Titles view does what it says on the tin, offering up ideas for books that relate to titles you’ve already read.
Anyone who buys their books from Amazon should find something useful in the new Your Books service. Perhaps the only surprising thing about it is that it’s taken Amazon this long to launch it.
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