8 ms·

Amazon sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books last quarter

40 points by hexis 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- mlinsey 16y ago
  It does not include free books. No mention of "almost free". http://www.scribd.com/doc/34551590/AmazonRelease6-19-2010 http://www.scribd.com/doc/34551590/AmazonRelease6-19-2010
  - phreeza 16y ago
    Wow thats impressive then... I was almost sure it would include those. I think the books that are free in the US are just almost free in Europe, via whispernet at least.
- muhfuhkuh 16y ago
  FTA: "The Kindle sales figure does not include free Kindle books, of which there are 1.8 million originally published before 1923 available for downloading."
YooLi 16y ago
Making the Kindle app available on a multitude of devices (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.) was a very smart move by Amazon. If someone has a kindle now, it is absolutely no problem for them to get an iPad or other device and continue reading/purchasing books.
- RexRollman 16y ago
  Yep, you can read it anywhere Amazon allows you to read it.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    "Disallows" and "hasn't finished writing software for yet" are two different beasts. Amazon wants you to be able to read your books wherever you want; the more places you can read them, and the happier you are, the more ebooks they sell.
    - wmf 16y ago
      I suspect RexRollman's point was about DRM. If Amazon doesn't support your platform, then it isn't supported. You can't even write your own software to read Kindle books because of the DRM.
    - ahk 16y ago
      How about on a Sony eReader touch? You're saying they have plans for that as well?
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        No more than they could possibly be having plans for the iTouch (and by extension iPhone), which is billed as the answer to the Kindle. Well, that's not true really. There's not a snowball's chance in hell Sony would ever LET them distribute a reader app, no matter how much Amazon wanted to.
        ahk 16y ago
        Amazon doesn't need to distribute an app for the Sony reader touch. Just the books themselves in epub format instead of their current kindle/mobipocket format.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- Goosey 16y ago
  Agreed. As much as I hate it Kindle is quickly becoming the default e-book platform/format. It reminds me of the earlier days of DRM-encumbered iTunes which was 'opened' up to be usable on other devices. The question in my mind is who will be the white knight of DRM-free e-book distribution that Amazon arguably was for music? My best guess would be Google, but they have seemed determined to prove their complete inability to enter any direct-sales industry. So I will place my hope on some yet-to-be-birthed scrappy young startup. Assuming that even happens, of course. As draconian and dinosaur as the recording industry was in the DRM-iTunes era.. The publishing industry is simply notorious about taking a hard-line approach to copyright infringement. I guess it makes sense; they predate the recording industry by several hundred years. To make matters worse there was always a huge amount of music piracy. Recording companies were anxious to generate huge heaps of bad PR. Apple's forced use of the iTunes software was restrictive enough to chafe not only the tech crowd, but many mainstream consumers. There was a public outcry for DRM-free legal digital music stores. With e-books.. No one seems too concerned.
redstripe 16y ago
This is just for hardcovers - not paperbacks. Outside of textbooks, we have very few hardcovers in our house.
- TeHCrAzY 16y ago
  Good point. My mind skimmed the hardcover element completely. Do you pay more for postage when purchasing a hardcover book?
  - jim_h 16y ago
    Amazon offers free 2-day shipping after $25 in purchases for most of their items. For the price of a hardcover book you might already qualify for free shipping, or just add another item to get to $25 and get free shipping.
- fbcocq 16y ago
  Also, keeping in mind that online book sales account for only 15.5% of all books sold (at least in Germany), it's not the end of the printed book by a longshot.
  - hapless 16y ago
    Germany's online booksellers have ridiculous prices. I don't know what the marketshare figures look like in the rest of the world, but I would be very surprised if they were comparable to Germany.
parfe 16y ago
I keep looking to make a kindle purchase of a newer book. The price floor of $10 on a digital item has so far been hard to swallow. I've downloaded plenty of out of copyright classics, but why buy the kindle edition for $10 when I can get a gently used paperback for around $6 shipped with the ability to resell it for anywhere between $4-$8 depending on supply?
- xenophanes 16y ago
  Reselling paperbacks and getting a good price for them? What's your time worth?
  - parfe 16y ago
    It isn't just my time. It's about making sure books get read. I can't throw a book out so I figure I'll ship it off to someone else. A box of padded envelopes and the post office is 100ft from where I eat lunch nearly every day. It isn't so much of a hassle. Not only that, but the kindle actually slows down my reading. Overall a paperbook is less of a time commitment.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  The $10 price is pushing it just a little bit, but I buy enough books of other varieties- older books and public domain books, typically $7 and $1-2 respectively- that I figure it works out ok in the end.
acangiano 16y ago
Before you dismiss this because it's limited to hardcover books, keep in mind that, for general books, a hardcover version is often released before a paperback one is made available. This means that many new hot books will only be available as hardcover or Kindle editions. And the Kindle format is winning. This is a remarkable result and should be considered as a sign that we are reaching a tipping point for ebooks, to phrase it in a Gladwell-esque way.
- MJR 16y ago
  I don't think we're at a tipping point yet. Amazon sold Kindles to its most regular book customers. We'll reach a tipping point when the general public begins to purchase ebooks, but I don't think we're there yet. We don't know how many of these purchases are to Amazon's best customers. I would be very curious to see the purchases broken down by the number of customers purchasing ebooks vs those purchasing paper books. And by quantity, how many ebooks are purchased vs paper books per customer. Is this simply a fact of frequent customers now buying ebooks, or many more customers now buying ebooks.
- gamble 16y ago
  The statistics might be rather different if the Kindle edition wasn't 1/3 the price of a hardcover.
RexRollman 16y ago
I have a problem with the term "Sold" when it comes to Kindle books. Nobody actually "buys" one, they license it. DRM is toxic.
- tghw 16y ago
  The Kindle DRM is pretty easy to strip off. Then you have a mobipocket ebook that can be easily converted to epub, pdf, etc.
  - RexRollman 16y ago
    You not really advising me to break the law, are you?
    - tghw 16y ago
      I didn't advise you to do anything. I'm just stating a simple fact.
hop 16y ago
This means Apple, out of nowhere, could soon become the #1 or #2 book retailer in the world by next year. Apple has sold 3M iPads, roughly the same as the Kindle - http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2010/01/amazon_ceo_millions_of_kindles_sold.html http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/201... There will probably be around 2:1 iPads to Kindles and Nooks by the end of the year. They are doing what they did with music with books.
- lallysingh 16y ago
  But also remember that many people don't own kindles, but buy books & use the software on other devices -- quite often Apple devices.
  - hop 16y ago
    For now anyways. I doubt many people with iPads will buy Kindles in the future and Apple's eReader will scale far beyond the kindle because it offers so much more. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Android tablets roll out.
    - elq 16y ago
      did you actually comprehend what lallysingh was saying? I'll summarize - many people who are buying kindle books are not using amazon hardware.
      - hop 16y ago
        A year from now there will be 2-3 times as many iPads in circulation as there are Kindles. 2 years, way more. Most of these people obviously will not have prior Kindle accounts and they will buy via iBooks rather than a third party app. The size of the pie is increasing, Kindle's slice can't keep pace.
        lallysingh 16y ago
        I have my doubts on people preferring iBooks. Amazon.com is a much better place to shop, and as long as I have any other type of machine, the kindle books are more flexible for me.
fierarul 16y ago
And yet for all the books I wanted to buy last week paperbacks were cheaper compared to Kindle books. So much for digital copies being easier to manufacture and all that. I only see myself buying Kindle books for something unavailable in paper form or with a serious discount.

40 points by hexis 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mlinsey 16y ago
It does not include free books. No mention of "almost free". http://www.scribd.com/doc/34551590/AmazonRelease6-19-2010 http://www.scribd.com/doc/34551590/AmazonRelease6-19-2010
- phreeza 16y ago
  Wow thats impressive then... I was almost sure it would include those. I think the books that are free in the US are just almost free in Europe, via whispernet at least.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
FTA: "The Kindle sales figure does not include free Kindle books, of which there are 1.8 million originally published before 1923 available for downloading."

YooLi 16y ago

Making the Kindle app available on a multitude of devices (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc.) was a very smart move by Amazon. If someone has a kindle now, it is absolutely no problem for them to get an iPad or other device and continue reading/purchasing books.

RexRollman 16y ago
Yep, you can read it anywhere Amazon allows you to read it.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  "Disallows" and "hasn't finished writing software for yet" are two different beasts. Amazon wants you to be able to read your books wherever you want; the more places you can read them, and the happier you are, the more ebooks they sell.
  - wmf 16y ago
    I suspect RexRollman's point was about DRM. If Amazon doesn't support your platform, then it isn't supported. You can't even write your own software to read Kindle books because of the DRM.
  - ahk 16y ago
    How about on a Sony eReader touch? You're saying they have plans for that as well?
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      No more than they could possibly be having plans for the iTouch (and by extension iPhone), which is billed as the answer to the Kindle. Well, that's not true really. There's not a snowball's chance in hell Sony would ever LET them distribute a reader app, no matter how much Amazon wanted to.
      - ahk 16y ago
        Amazon doesn't need to distribute an app for the Sony reader touch. Just the books themselves in epub format instead of their current kindle/mobipocket format.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Goosey 16y ago
Agreed. As much as I hate it Kindle is quickly becoming the default e-book platform/format. It reminds me of the earlier days of DRM-encumbered iTunes which was 'opened' up to be usable on other devices. The question in my mind is who will be the white knight of DRM-free e-book distribution that Amazon arguably was for music? My best guess would be Google, but they have seemed determined to prove their complete inability to enter any direct-sales industry. So I will place my hope on some yet-to-be-birthed scrappy young startup. Assuming that even happens, of course. As draconian and dinosaur as the recording industry was in the DRM-iTunes era.. The publishing industry is simply notorious about taking a hard-line approach to copyright infringement. I guess it makes sense; they predate the recording industry by several hundred years. To make matters worse there was always a huge amount of music piracy. Recording companies were anxious to generate huge heaps of bad PR. Apple's forced use of the iTunes software was restrictive enough to chafe not only the tech crowd, but many mainstream consumers. There was a public outcry for DRM-free legal digital music stores. With e-books.. No one seems too concerned.

redstripe 16y ago

This is just for hardcovers - not paperbacks. Outside of textbooks, we have very few hardcovers in our house.

TeHCrAzY 16y ago
Good point. My mind skimmed the hardcover element completely. Do you pay more for postage when purchasing a hardcover book?
- jim_h 16y ago
  Amazon offers free 2-day shipping after $25 in purchases for most of their items. For the price of a hardcover book you might already qualify for free shipping, or just add another item to get to $25 and get free shipping.
fbcocq 16y ago
Also, keeping in mind that online book sales account for only 15.5% of all books sold (at least in Germany), it's not the end of the printed book by a longshot.
- hapless 16y ago
  Germany's online booksellers have ridiculous prices. I don't know what the marketshare figures look like in the rest of the world, but I would be very surprised if they were comparable to Germany.

parfe 16y ago

I keep looking to make a kindle purchase of a newer book. The price floor of $10 on a digital item has so far been hard to swallow. I've downloaded plenty of out of copyright classics, but why buy the kindle edition for $10 when I can get a gently used paperback for around $6 shipped with the ability to resell it for anywhere between $4-$8 depending on supply?

xenophanes 16y ago
Reselling paperbacks and getting a good price for them? What's your time worth?
- parfe 16y ago
  It isn't just my time. It's about making sure books get read. I can't throw a book out so I figure I'll ship it off to someone else. A box of padded envelopes and the post office is 100ft from where I eat lunch nearly every day. It isn't so much of a hassle. Not only that, but the kindle actually slows down my reading. Overall a paperbook is less of a time commitment.
sliverstorm 16y ago
The $10 price is pushing it just a little bit, but I buy enough books of other varieties- older books and public domain books, typically $7 and $1-2 respectively- that I figure it works out ok in the end.

acangiano 16y ago

Before you dismiss this because it's limited to hardcover books, keep in mind that, for general books, a hardcover version is often released before a paperback one is made available. This means that many new hot books will only be available as hardcover or Kindle editions. And the Kindle format is winning. This is a remarkable result and should be considered as a sign that we are reaching a tipping point for ebooks, to phrase it in a Gladwell-esque way.

MJR 16y ago
I don't think we're at a tipping point yet. Amazon sold Kindles to its most regular book customers. We'll reach a tipping point when the general public begins to purchase ebooks, but I don't think we're there yet. We don't know how many of these purchases are to Amazon's best customers. I would be very curious to see the purchases broken down by the number of customers purchasing ebooks vs those purchasing paper books. And by quantity, how many ebooks are purchased vs paper books per customer. Is this simply a fact of frequent customers now buying ebooks, or many more customers now buying ebooks.
gamble 16y ago
The statistics might be rather different if the Kindle edition wasn't 1/3 the price of a hardcover.

RexRollman 16y ago

I have a problem with the term "Sold" when it comes to Kindle books. Nobody actually "buys" one, they license it. DRM is toxic.

tghw 16y ago
The Kindle DRM is pretty easy to strip off. Then you have a mobipocket ebook that can be easily converted to epub, pdf, etc.
- RexRollman 16y ago
  You not really advising me to break the law, are you?
  - tghw 16y ago
    I didn't advise you to do anything. I'm just stating a simple fact.

hop 16y ago

This means Apple, out of nowhere, could soon become the #1 or #2 book retailer in the world by next year. Apple has sold 3M iPads, roughly the same as the Kindle - http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2010/01/amazon_ceo_millions_of_kindles_sold.html http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/201... There will probably be around 2:1 iPads to Kindles and Nooks by the end of the year. They are doing what they did with music with books.

lallysingh 16y ago
But also remember that many people don't own kindles, but buy books & use the software on other devices -- quite often Apple devices.
- hop 16y ago
  For now anyways. I doubt many people with iPads will buy Kindles in the future and Apple's eReader will scale far beyond the kindle because it offers so much more. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Android tablets roll out.
  - elq 16y ago
    did you actually comprehend what lallysingh was saying? I'll summarize - many people who are buying kindle books are not using amazon hardware.
    - hop 16y ago
      A year from now there will be 2-3 times as many iPads in circulation as there are Kindles. 2 years, way more. Most of these people obviously will not have prior Kindle accounts and they will buy via iBooks rather than a third party app. The size of the pie is increasing, Kindle's slice can't keep pace.
      - lallysingh 16y ago
        I have my doubts on people preferring iBooks. Amazon.com is a much better place to shop, and as long as I have any other type of machine, the kindle books are more flexible for me.

fierarul 16y ago

And yet for all the books I wanted to buy last week paperbacks were cheaper compared to Kindle books. So much for digital copies being easier to manufacture and all that. I only see myself buying Kindle books for something unavailable in paper form or with a serious discount.