Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
It's still a bit early to be popping any corks. It's good that a major publisher sold 2000 books as opposed to the 200 they expected. Of course, compared to their print sales, it's probably still a drop in the bucket.
In comparison, my Kindle sales have been an order of magnitude slower than my web site sales... I haven't made enough since November to get even a single royalty check from Amazon.
At this point, I wouldn't give this anecdote much weight. Let's wait until we get some hard numbers.
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I agree with you that this is just a small positive news item, but every journey begins with a first step. I'm happy that we keep hearing lots of good
little stories like this, because eventually they will to add up to a
bigger success in the end.
I really do think that the Kindle is making more people aware of e-books and that is a good thing for all of us, regardless of our chosen reader.
My son works in a shopping mall, and when I go to pick him up, I read my kindle as I wait. I have been stopped at least once
every single day by someone that asks "Hey, is that that Amazon thingy?" I am not exaggerating--it really has been at least once a day that I am at the mall. I'm happy to show them too, but at the end, they always ask the price. And when I tell them, most say they'll wait till it comes down in price.
But of course, since I
am a Kindle owner and think it's very good at what it does, I get a wee bit more excited.
But you are correct in implying that we have a long way to go before e-book publishing is more than a just a few drops in a bucket. But that time will come and we are seeing the beginning stages.
No disrespect to my cybook-illiad-sony-brothers/sisters-in-arms, but Amazon was the one with the marketing muscle to make the average, non-geek (and even some geeks) aware of ebook readers. That's why I fail to understand some of the kindle-bashing comments in other threads.