Looking to take its digital book experience to new frontiers and fend off competition from new entrants, Amazon.com today said that it plans to unveil a new option for its Kindle electronic book reading device that allows users to preview titles in HTML 5. Once the feature launches, Amazon said that users will be able "to sample Kindle books from anywhere."

"Kindle book previews will be available through your web browser-simply click a Preview button on an Amazon book detail page and a new browser window will open containing the preview," the company writes in a blog post. "If at any point while you're reading the preview you decide you want to buy the full book, simply click the buy button and it will be instantly downloaded to your Kindle or any one of our free Kindle apps."

TechCrunch asks why the new HTML 5 offering is only limited to previewing titles rather than making the entire book available.

Meanwhile, in other Kindle news, Amazon.com said today that it has instituted a new royalty program for authors and publishers who use the company's Kindle Digital Text Platform. The new pricing structure allows authors to get a 70 percent royalty on the book's list price. That compares to the 35 percent royalty that authors historically have received.

Under the new structure, an electronic book that sold for $8.99 in the Kindle Store or via one of the company's mobile apps would return $6.25 to the publisher/author. The standard option, which remains in place as well, would give the author $3.15 in that example.

The new pricing structure, which was previously announced, comes just a few days after Amazon sliced the price on the Kindle device to $189 amid a price war with Barnes & Noble.

For authors to qualify for the new 70 percent royalty option, they must price their books between $2.99 and $9.99. The list price also must be at least 20 percent below the list price for the physical book and be made available in all geographies where the author has publishing rights.

"We're excited about the launch of the 70 percent royalty option and user experience enhancements in DTP because they enable authors and publishers to conveniently offer more content to Kindle customers and to make more money from the books they sell," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content, in the release.