MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Track # of Amazon ebooks that are available

Daithi · 03-21-2008, 05:41 PM

If from the main Amazon menu you select "Books" then press the GO button the browser will display a screen that has categories on the left hand side. The categories, such as Non-fiction and Literature/fiction, contain the total number of books in each category. If you add the number of Non-Fiction and Fiction books you will get a total of 4,363,865 books available on Amazon.

If you do the exact same thing under "Kindle Store" you will get a total of 107,683 books available. This means a little less than 2.5% of their books are available as Kindle books. BTW, there are over three times as many "Law" books as there are Kindle books.

I'm not trying to be negative, as I love my Kindle, but we have a long way to go in terms of making content available on the Kindle.

One thing I wish Amazon would do is to provide a conversion service for publishers. The publisher sends them a paper copy of any book that has sold more than X copies in the last year, and Amazon scans, OCRs, and converts it into an ebook format for the publisher. This would be a smart move for Amazon because it would allow them to quickly make books available, and it would get the books into the AMZ format while not making the book available in competing ebook formats. If the publishers take care of the convertion process themselves they would most likely convert their books into all available formats. Why Amazon is not offering this service is beyond me.

There is simply no reason that books like William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are unavailable.

03-21-2008, 05:41 PM	#40
Daithi Publishers are evil! Posts: 2,418 Karma: 36205264 Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Rhode Island Device: Various Kindles	Less than 2.5% of Amazon's books are available on the Kindle If from the main Amazon menu you select "Books" then press the GO button the browser will display a screen that has categories on the left hand side. The categories, such as Non-fiction and Literature/fiction, contain the total number of books in each category. If you add the number of Non-Fiction and Fiction books you will get a total of 4,363,865 books available on Amazon. If you do the exact same thing under "Kindle Store" you will get a total of 107,683 books available. This means a little less than 2.5% of their books are available as Kindle books. BTW, there are over three times as many "Law" books as there are Kindle books. I'm not trying to be negative, as I love my Kindle, but we have a long way to go in terms of making content available on the Kindle. One thing I wish Amazon would do is to provide a conversion service for publishers. The publisher sends them a paper copy of any book that has sold more than X copies in the last year, and Amazon scans, OCRs, and converts it into an ebook format for the publisher. This would be a smart move for Amazon because it would allow them to quickly make books available, and it would get the books into the AMZ format while not making the book available in competing ebook formats. If the publishers take care of the convertion process themselves they would most likely convert their books into all available formats. Why Amazon is not offering this service is beyond me. There is simply no reason that books like William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged are unavailable. Last edited by Daithi; 03-21-2008 at 05:46 PM.