In collaboration with publishers, Amazon.com is enabling customers to find books at Amazon.com based on every word inside more than 120,000 books -- more than 33 million pages of searchable text. Customers can also preview the inside text of these books. Search Inside the Book is integrated into Amazon.com's standard search and includes books from all genres.

"Innovation drives customer experience, and Search Inside the Book is a great example," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, Amazon.com. "With the help of publishers, we're offering a completely new way for people to find the books they want."

"The customer in me loves this," said Maureen Egen, president of Time Warner Book Group.

Through Search Inside the Book, customers can find, discover and buy titles from more than 190 publishers, including the industry's largest: Wiley, Time Warner Book Group, Simon & Schuster, Inc., Random House, Inc., Publishers Group West, Incorporated, McGraw-Hill Professional, Holtzbrinck Publishers and HarperCollins Publishers.

Here's how it works:

• Customers interested in resistojet propulsion can search for "resistojet" and will automatically see a list of the many books at Amazon.com that contain this term in the text, in addition to those books that contain the term in the title.
• Books with "resistojet" in the text will display an excerpt including that word or phrase and a link that says "See more references to 'resistojet' in this book." By clicking on this link, customers will see a list of excerpts from all pages on which "resistojet" appears in the book they selected, as well as a link to view the full page from the book on which the excerpt appears.
• Once customers have clicked on the link to a specific page and signed in with their Amazon.com user name and password, they can preview relevant pages, including the page they selected, and search for other terms of interest within the book.

Additional examples include:

• Those looking to explore the scenic Multnomah Falls can search for this term to discover a wide range of related titles ranging from lodging and hiking guidebooks, to Leslie Carraway's "Land Mammals of Oregon."
• Searching for "Curse of the Bambino" provides baseball lovers and Red Sox fans with a variety of books on the subject -- everything from "Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within" to "Uncle John's Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader."
• Customers who search for "product price elasticity" will discover more than 100 titles, including Michael Porter's "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors," and David Besanko's "Economics of Strategy, 2nd Edition," which includes 32 references to this exact subject.

Customers are encouraged to type words and phrases of interest into the new search box, and enjoy whatever surprises they might find.

To encourage customers to share their experiences using Search Inside the Book, Amazon.com is running a contest that will award one grand prize winner a Segway Human Transporter. Ten additional customers will each win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate. Visit our "How It Works" page (www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/10197021/) to enter the contest, learn more about the new feature, and see more sample searches.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and sellers list millions of unique new and used items in categories such as apparel and accessories, sporting goods, electronics, computers, kitchenware and housewares, books, music, DVDs, videos, cameras and photo items, toys, baby items and baby registry, software, computer and video games, cell phones and service, tools and hardware, travel services, magazine subscriptions and outdoor living items.

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to potential future losses, significant amount of indebtedness, competition, commercial agreements and strategic alliances, seasonality, potential fluctuations in operating results and rate of growth, foreign exchange rates, management of potential growth, system interruption, international expansion, consumer trends, inventory, fulfillment center optimization, limited operating history, government regulation and taxation, fraud, and new business areas. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2002, and all subsequent filings.

CONTACT:
Amazon.com, Seattle
Public Relations, 206-266-7180

SOURCE: Amazon.com