What Is a Kindle Edition Book?

An eBook, which is short for "electronic book," is defined by PC Mag as "the electronic counterpart of a printed book." These books can be viewed on many different electronic devices, including desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, handheld gaming systems and dedicated e-readers. EBooks come in a variety of formats, including PDF, ePub, eReader, DOC, MobiPocket and the Kindle's own native Kindle Edition format.

Kindle Edition books are eBooks that are purchased off of Amazon's online eBook store and optimized for use with the Kindle e-reader. These eBook files are designated by an ".azw" file extension and come with Digital Rights Protection (DRM) that only allows the files to be read on Kindle e-reader devices or devices running a Kindle e-reader application or program. Users can share Kindle Edition books with up to six other Kindle e-readers or devices running Kindle software.

Kindle Edition books span the full spectrum of literary genres, from romantic novels and potboiler crime thrillers to biographies and literary classics. Furthermore, books written before the 1923 copyright laws went into effect can be downloaded onto a Kindle device free of charge. Kindle users can also subscribe to Kindle Edition newspapers and Kindle Edition magazines, purchase Kindle Edition singles and follow Kindle Edition versions of supported online blogs.

The Amazon Web store features an entire section dedicated to Kindle Edition books. To access this section of the store, navigate to the Amazon homepage, move your mouse cursor over the "Kindle" department option and click the "eBooks" option from the context menu. There, you can browse, purchase and download all of the Kindle Edition books Amazon has to offer. Alternately, if you find a print book on the Amazon store that you wish to purchase as a Kindle Edition book and a Kindle Edition of that book is available, there will be link to the Kindle Edition on the print book's product description page.