"Hint: there is a workaround. Register a new (free) gmail account. Use it to open a new amazon.com account. Give your new Amazon account a home address somewhere in the USA. Do not give it a credit card. You now have a US amazon account!
Buy amazon.com gift vouchers by logging into amazon.com with your existing UK/EU-based amazon.co.uk account, and cash them in to charge up your new, sanitary, lives-in-the-USA account. You are then set up to buy US Kindle ebooks by pretending to be American.
You'll need to have a Kindle device tied to that account, or read the books on screen. (Personally I'd download the ebooks to something like an iphone, then break the DRM on them and transcode them to epub files for reading on whatever the hell gadget I prefer. But you didn't hear me saying that ...)"
In the comments section of a blog post where he informs his fans that the middle book if his Merchant Princes series is available Stross tells people who want to read his books (and want to buy them) how to do it, even if it means gaming the system a little.
Frankly, I don't think Amazon particularly cares if people in the UK set up a false US account, or even strip DRM from the file once they purchase a book. The only ones who care are the publishers who are trying their best to hold on to an outdated system.
Kudos.
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