Now, get free or discounted e-book with printed version at Amazon

Amazon has reportedly announced a scheme in which it will offer e-book versions of texts for free or at a discounted price when buyers purchase a hard copy of that text.

The Matchbook scheme will apply to any title bought from the store since it opened in 1995, however, the offer is only being publicised on the firm's US website.

Amazon said that the scheme, to be launched in October, would include more than 10,000 titles and include publishers like Harper Collins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the BBC reports.

An independent book industry commentator Neill Denny said that the problem with digital content is that one doesn't own it but just license it, in a way renting it effectively.

Editor of trade publication the Bookseller magazine, Philip Jones said that he was skeptical about whether the reader would actually want it as people read in one format, either print or digital.

Jones pointed that the scheme is advantageous for students or for people who have particularly weighty hardbacks that they'd like to read in print form at home and then as an e-book on the road.

According to the report, Amazon through its Matchbook scheme would offer digital versions of titles for prices ranging between 2.99 dollars to free.

Kindle Content Vice President Russ Grandinetti said that the scheme is an easy choice for publishers and authors who will now be able to earn more from each book they publish.