Amazon.com launched Amazon Shorts, exclusive short-form literature delivered digitally for 49 cents each. Amazon Shorts have no printed editions. No digital rights management software is needed to download and read Amazon Shorts, and customers have three options for reading Shorts: view now takes customers to a Web page to read or print out the Amazon Short; download initiates the download of a PDF file; and email sends the entire Amazon Short in a plain-text message to the specified email address. Amazon Shorts will also be stored permanently in customers' Digital Lockers, and customers are welcome to print out hard copies of purchased Amazon Shorts from any of these formats.

"Amazon Shorts will help authors find new readers and help readers find and discover authors they'll love," said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com's vice president of Digital Media. "We hope that by making short-form literature widely and easily available, Amazon.com can help to fuel a revival of this kind of work."

Amazon Shorts is its own store at Amazon.com and can be accessed directly via http://www.amazon.com/shorts, as well as from the Amazon.com homepage, Store Directory and through the Amazon.com Books store. Each Amazon Short product page will also feature the complete works of the author, along with product images and descriptions of other works available for purchase on Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/shorts