New gizmo helps people access books

You can get music on your phone, you can get a movie, a football match, or a shoot-em-up video game, but you can't get a book less than 50 years old.

Until now.

Actually until October 19, when online retailer Amazon aims to light a fire under the Australian bookselling business with the release of its Kindle machine.

Yes, that is why it's called Kindle.

"It's basically to start a fire," Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told AAP from Seattle.

The Kindle is the same size as a small paperback and the same weight, but only as thick as a pencil, so it's easy to carry.

And it holds 1,500 books.

A big hit in the US since it was launched two years ago, the Kindle hasn't been available in Australia because Amazon has been negotiating a deal with mobile phone companies.

You use it like a phone but you don't need a mobile phone account, let alone a computer.

"This is a unique business model that Kindle has really pioneered, where we did a deal with the 3G wireless carrier behind the scenes and we hide the complexity of that from the customer," Mr Bezos said.

"When we sell you a book, the wireless delivery is included in the price of the book."

That price is around half of what you would pay for a physical copy of the book.

So on a $100 textbook, the saving could be $50. Just a few purchases like that could offset the $US279 ($A313.39) price of the machine.

But the cheap price of books via Kindle isn't the main reason people are buying them in the US, Mr Bezos says.

"What we're finding is that people who are readers are primarily buying the device for convenience, the fact that it makes reading better," he said.

Most people don't think reading on a computer screen is better than curling up with a good book, but Amazon says the Kindle's screen is different, and reads just like a real book, even in bright sunlight.

"It's a completely new kind of computer display and when people see it for the first time they do a double take because it looks completely different from a traditional computer," Mr Bezos said.

That's because it uses real ink.

Black ink particles are suspended in white fluid in microscopic capsules, and the particles move to the top or the bottom of the capsules to show black or white on the screen.

So where can you get it?

From the Amazon website, of course, just like everything else Amazon sells. Airmail delivery will cost about $20 and take about a week.

Downloading a book will take about 60 seconds.