Kindle will not receive UK release “at this time”

Recent rumours suggesting that the Kindle, an e-reader developed by Amazon and released in the United States, will be released in the UK in October have been flatly denied by Amazon.

An article on thebookseller.com published yesterday cited anonymous sources among publishers as saying that the popular device would receive a UK launch later this year, as early as October. SciFiNow contacted Amazon for comment, and the company was adamant that any information on a release across the Atlantic is untrue. “We are unable to comment on rumour,” said a spokeswoman at Nelson Bostock, the PR firm handling Amazon’s media relations. “The Amazon Kindle is a US-only initiative and there are no plans for a UK release at this time.” When pressed further, the spokeswoman added that there is not even a rough schedule for any release in the United Kingdom in the future.

Amazon has recently been involved in a widely-publicised controversy regarding the licencing of its e-books on the Kindle platform, when it abruptly recalled all purchased copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four from the devices without warning.