Amazon readies custom Kindle covers for the masses

This week the teams responsible for pushing as many Kindles as possible this holiday season have hit upon a rather lucrative business: custom-made covers. What Amazon intends on doing here is offering up a service that would normally be done by a variety of 3rd-party accessory makers, doing the work themselves to make the whole business feel much more like a single package. In other words, prospective owners of a Kindle – or those looking to buy one as a gift – will see the competition as a bit less unique now that a Kindle can come with a cover with a photo of their child on it.

Users will be able to create and order their own Amazon Origami covers for a variety of devices starting this week. These include the new Kindle Fire HD, Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle Fire HDX 8.9" – meanwhile a set of slightly more standard cases are able to be customized for the likes of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9", Kindle Fire HD [Previous Generation], and Kindle Touch.

"With this new service, we're making it possible for customers to dream up virtually any design and seamlessly turn it into a Kindle cover—at no additional cost. We've also created designs exclusive to Amazon that work perfectly with our new Origami covers to give customers even more options.

We're excited to bring this all-new technology to Kindle accessories and we can't wait to see what customers come up with." – Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle

Customization includes the addition of a home-made photo of any sort – provided it's large enough, of course – or selection from a big collection of images Amazon has licensed for just this purpose alone. While the photos you choose will be printed full-scale across the entirety of the case, the images Amazon has prepared will be applied in a slightly more unique way.

When you order a case with any one of a set of Amazon's transparent-background images, you'll have the color of the case itself shown through. If you pick a black case and you want a picture of a smiley face on the case, everything outside the circle of the face itself will still be the black of the case. Have a peek at a few examples here, and let us know if you're onboard with Amazon's methods!