Effect of Kindle on Sony's Content Offerings

[vivaldirules]

In the past two weeks Sony have added about 1400 new titles (a 3.0% increase) and now have about 50,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers with an average of 92 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since last September. The greatest percentage increases in the past two weeks are in the categories of Manga and Graphic Novels (18.8% - okay, they added 3 titles and now have 19 for sale) and Sports and Games (up 6.8%).

In the same period Amazon have added 6,000 new titles (a 3.5% increase) and now have about 173,000 ebooks for sale for the Kindle with an average of 282 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since November.

[JSWolf]

But how many eBooks has Amazon added if you take away all of the self-published titles?

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how many eBooks has Amazon added if you take away all of the self-published titles?

Unfortunately, that can't be answered with any certainty, Jon. Howevever, there are 10 self-published titles in the 140 total that Amazon have for sale in the category of Baseball (see post #140 above). If that statistic holds for other categories (there's no way to know if it does), it would mean that about 93% or 161,000 are not self-published.

[JSWolf]

That's the problem with Amazon's numbers. There's no way to be sure what they really are because we don't want to take self-published into account.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But how many eBooks has Amazon added if you take away all of the self-published titles?

Is there a convenient way to do that? I doubt it.

And I'm not certain it matters. Total number of available titles isn't terribly meaningful. The key question (which we can't answer) is "Are the books I want available for my reader?". The answer to that question will vary by reader owner.

It would be interesting if we knew how Sony added titles, how they chose what titles to add, and what titles (if any) they were unable to add because they couldn't get rights, but I doubt there's a way to tell that, either.

I'd like to see a list for the Sony Reader indicating what publishers they carry, sorted by number of titles carried, to see who is on board, and more importantly, get an idea of who isn't. Are there major publishers who issue ebooks in Kindle format but not Sony?
______
Dennis

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I'd like to see a list for the Sony Reader indicating what publishers they carry, sorted by number of titles carried, to see who is on board, and more importantly, get an idea of who isn't. Are there major publishers who issue ebooks in Kindle format but not Sony?
______
Dennis

This is the closest I can come to answering that, Dennis. It's a screenshot of the list of publishers that you can search on at the Sony site.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

This is the closest I can come to answering that, Dennis. It's a screenshot of the list of publishers that you can search on at the Sony site.

Is that the complete list? I'd have to Look Stuff Up to expand upon it, as there are names in there that are "corporate parents" covering a number of imprints. (Macmillan, for example, is the US umbrella for Holtzbrink, and may include Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, W.H. Freeman, Henry Holt, Macmillan, St. Martin's Press,Scientific American, and Tor/Forge, among others.)
______
Dennis

[vivaldirules]

Well, your question, Dennis, has led me to acquire some better data from the Sony site. Since I can search the Sony site by publisher I did that for each of them and have put the totals into a spreadsheet. Here is a text file containing all of the publishers that Sony lists followed by the number of titles by each that Sony has for sale. I have sorted these from highest (Taylor & Francis Publishing with 13,567 titles) to lowest (John Wiley & Sons with 1 title, for example). If you add up all of these titles and add the 958 Sony Classics (the public domain titles that Sony sells), you get a total of 46,585 ebooks for sale at Sony. That sounds about right to me since the 50,000 that you get by summing by all the listings in each category we know includes some multiple counts. So, yes, I think this just might be all the publishers that Sony sells ebooks for. I hope you'll take a look and make note of any major holes (particularly as they compare with Amazon).

[pwalker8]

One comparison that I did was to look up Robert Heinlein on both amazon and sony. Amazon had 6 books - Space Cadet, Glory Road, Red Planet, Double Star, For Us the Living and The Puppet Masters. Sony has 3 books - The Puppet Masters, Stranger in a Strange Land and For Us, the Living. So Amazon has 4 that Sony doesn't have while Sony has 1 that Amazon doesn't have. While this isn't conclusive, I suspect that those who think that the difference is just self published books, or duplicate titles are engaged in wishful thinking.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One comparison that I did was to look up Robert Heinlein on both Amazon and Sony. Amazon had 6 books - Space Cadet, Glory Road, Red Planet, Double Star, For Us the Living and The Puppet Masters. Sony has 3 books - The Puppet Masters, Stranger in a Strange Land and For Us, the Living. So Amazon has 4 that Sony doesn't have while Sony has 1 that Amazon doesn't have. While this isn't conclusive, I suspect that those who think that the difference is just self published books, or duplicate titles are engaged in wishful thinking.

What you just showed is a major issue for eBooks. The tower or eBabel we have is doing eBooks no justice at all. Especially when publishers don't know how to handle it. We now have eReader, PDF, BBeB, AZW/Topaz, MS Reader, & ePub as the major formats. That 5 different formats that ever eBook needs to support.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What you just showed is a major issue for eBooks. The tower or eBabel we have is doing eBooks no justice at all. Especially when publishers don't know how to handle it. We now have eReader, PDF, BBeB, AZW/Topaz, MS Reader, & ePub as the major formats. That 5 different formats that ever eBook needs to support.

I agree, Jon. But the major issue has little to do with eBabel, in my opinion. The major issue with Sony selling far fewer titles than Amazon is that Sony sells far fewer titles than Amazon. It is not uncertain multiple counts, some self-published titles, or eBabel. It is Sony being far less aggressive in selling ebooks than Amazon. To suggest it is anything else simply confuses the major issue.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I agree, Jon. But the major issue has little to do with eBabel, in my opinion. The major issue with Sony selling far fewer titles than Amazon is that Sony sells far fewer titles than Amazon. It is not uncertain multiple counts, some self-published titles, or eBabel. It is Sony being far less aggressive in selling ebooks than Amazon. To suggest it is anything else simply confuses the major issue.

Publishers like Penguin are jumping onboard the epub bandwagon this Autumn; i haven't seen any of their offerings on the Kindle.

Whether the pricing will be aimed at the British market, ie too expensive for secptic tanks, remains to be seen.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Cookie Monster

Publishers like Penguin are jumping onboard the epub bandwagon this Autumn; i haven't seen any of their offerings on the Kindle.

Whether the pricing will be aimed at the British market, ie too expensive for secptic tanks, remains to be seen.

Penguin is all over the Kindle store.

[Cookie Monster]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

Penguin is all over the Kindle store.

I stand corrected. I forgot penguin is more than just penguin classics . They've just added a few in that range now, 139 compared to 12,500 or so books.

[vivaldirules]

In the past two weeks Sony have added about 1000 new titles (a 2.0% increase) and now have about 51,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers with an average of 91 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since I started monitoring them one year ago this week. The greatest percentage increases in the past two weeks are in the categories of Technology (up 7.7%) and Short Stories - SciFi and Fantasy (up 7.0%). Most the new titles in the latter category are the 103 Arthur C. Clarke short stories they have for sale at $1.99 each.

In the same period Amazon have added 6,800 new titles (a 3.9% increase) and now have about 180,000 ebooks for sale for the Kindle with an average of 292 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since November.