Earlier this week Seth Godin posted some great suggestions for Kindle business models on his blog, in the face of iPad competition from Apple (not that I have any sort of interest in helping Amazon–this could presumably be useful for Sony or Nook or any other eInk/bookstore affiliated e-reader).  Some of the suggestions are fascinating, and most involve a cheap or free Kindle, in a scheme similar to cell phones and service providers: free/cheap hardware in exchange for contracted service.  I’d sign up to buy 12 e-books from Amazon if it involved a free Kindle… just saying…

1. The paperback Kindle. Don’t worry about touchscreens or color or even always available internet to download new books. Make a $49 Kindle. Not so hard if you use available wifi and simplify the device. Make it the only ebook reader in town.

2. The Kindle as razor. Buy any 8 bestselling books on the Kindle ($10 each) and get a paperback Kindle for free.

3. Kindle of the month club. In the 1950s, the most powerful person in all publishing was the guy who chose the book for the book of the month club. It didn’t pay the author glamorously well, but if your book was chosen, it guaranteed people would talk and it would become a bestseller.

Sign up to get a Kindle book of your choice every month for 12 months and get a free Kindle. Amazon presents you with ten book choices, and since the cost of delivering it is zero, there’s plenty of margin for all…

4. Let publishers, leaders and corporations push PDFs and chosen books directly to their tribes via the Kindle. For example, I could put Kindles in the hands of the 1,000 service techs of my ventilation company and they’d see the new service manual daily. Or an author could create her own version of a book club, collecting a monthly fee and pushing the latest book directly to people who want to read it. Simpler still, how about letting me gift a book directly to anyone I know who has a Kindle? (thanks Lisa, for this idea).

Now let’s see if Amazon has an ear out…