E-Publisher: Kindle Sales Eclipsing Sony's

[Kingston]

From the article:

'More anecdotal Kindle sales data: An e-book publisher tells us that in December, his royalties for Kindle sales equaled Sony (SNE) e-book royalties for all of Q4 2007.'

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/e...pacing_sony_s_

or http://tinyurl.com/2rgetv

[astra]

You keep on fueling Kindle vs. Sony and posting provoking articles?

[jacksonunit]

Sorry, but Kindle is going to eat the Sony reader (and all others) alive in this area. Here's why...

Let's say that my worst yuppie-geek nightmare comes true and I find myself at a coffee shop without a wifi connection (it could happen). I'm reading along and I realize that I have just finished the last page of "Earth in the Balance". OMDG! What ever shall I do? I have a fever and the only cure is more climate alarmisim. But wait. No need to panic. I can go to the Amazon store on my Kindle using the CDMA whispernet link and do a search for anthropogenic climate catastrophy and get a whole list of things to buy OR SAMPLE.

See now, the sample thing is the trick. I have bought three of the five items I have sampled IN JUST TWO WEEKS.

OK OK, sure. I'm easy. But I can't help but think this will put even some of you more wary trout on amazon's stringer.

[astra]

jacksonunit
Never happened to me.
I have a defined to-read-list for 1.5 year at least.
I can insert a few books here or there as well. So, I have 5-6 books on my reader...that could last me for a few months of reading fever. I always plan ahead what I would like to read.

Amazon quite possible will eat Sony. I do not argue with it.
It is just Kingston always finds provocative articles about Kindle vs. Sony Reader and posts them here. He doesn't do anything else. However, he burst into flames when I suggested that he and amazon are close friends

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jacksonunit

Sorry, but Kindle is going to eat the Sony reader (and all others) alive in this area. Here's why...

Aren't you forgetting that the Kindle can only be (effectively) used by an almost negligible minority of the world's population, whereas the Sony (and the CyBook) can be used world-wide?

[NatCh]

I think one thing that brings this sort of anecdotal evidence into some context is the difference in demographics that Amazon and Sony are playing to.

This pretty much doesn't apply to any Kindle owners here, they're pretty demographically similar to the Sony owners here.

Please read that sentence twice before you get on my case.

I think Amazon's customers are mainly folks who didn't know e-reader devices existed until the Kindle appeared on Amazon's home-page one day. I think they're folks who mainly read best-sellers, read them once, and then go on to the next one, never caring if they can ever read them again. These two things combine to mean that they're mostly unaware that they can get content anywhere but Amazon, so they get all their content there.

Whereas Sony's main demographic is probably more like folks in this community: they're more likely to have known about e-reading for years, know all sorts of places besides Sony's store to get content, and how to convert it to work on their Reader. They're also more likely to avoid DRM when they can (because they know about the long-term hazards of it, and want to be able to access their books again later), which further reduces the likelihood, or at least the frequency, of them buying from Sony.


Amazon has clearly (in my view) made and marketed the Kindle for the purpose of selling content, the way they're marketing it demonstrates that. Unsurprisingly, it's working. Folks argue that Sony has the same thing in mind, but I don't really think that's the case. I think the more viral marketing approach they have taken is much more likely to reach folks like those who hang out here. Especially since several of their efforts have been pretty well targeted at MobileRead, specifically, and several more at us along with others like Engadget and Gizmodo.


As an anecdotal evidence to support what I'm suggesting: in December of 2006 I showed my shiny new PRS500 to my family at Christmastime. My mom, a Library Science PhD, was completely disinterested at the time. One year later she's all het up about the Kindle, and even more excited because her department is getting her one to play with. The only difference I can see is that the Kindle is on Amazon's front page -- nearly as I can tell, most of the books she works with (Juvenile Literature) are not available in Kindle Editions. She wants it for reading bestsellers and doesn't care if she never reads them again -- just like most Kindle users I've talked to outside this community.


There you go, that's my theory, salt to taste.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Aren't you forgetting that the Kindle can only be (effectively) used by an almost negligible minority of the world's population, whereas the Sony (and the CyBook) can be used world-wide?

While we may know that the Sony can be used outside the USA with a little extra work that is not common knowledge I believe and certainly not advertised on the Sony site. I believe the average user on the street will think that both the Amazon and the Sony are targeted at the USA.

Dale

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Aren't you forgetting that the Kindle can only be (effectively) used by an almost negligible minority of the world's population, whereas the Sony (and the CyBook) can be used world-wide?

[Tongue in Cheek]I'm certainly glad that I'm in that negligible minority[/Tongue in Cheek]

[crionox]

Originally Posted by NatCh

This pretty much doesn't apply to any Kindle owners here, they're pretty demographically similar to the Sony owners here.

Please read that sentence twice before you get on my case.

I think Amazon's customers are mainly folks who didn't know e-reader devices existed until the Kindle appeared on Amazon's home-page one day. I think they're folks who mainly read best-sellers, read them once, and then go on to the next one, never caring if they can ever read them again. These two things combine to mean that they're mostly unaware that they can get content anywhere but Amazon, so they get all their content there.

Whereas Sony's main demographic is probably more like folks in this community: they're more likely to have known about e-reading for years, know all sorts of places besides Sony's store to get content, and how to convert it to work on their Reader. They're also more likely to avoid DRM when they can (because they know about the long-term hazards of it, and want to be able to access their books again later), which further reduces the likelihood, or at least the frequency, of them buying from Sony.

I don't see how the above examples are relevant. In effect, you're saying that the "hardcore" readers will gravitate towards the Sony. Even on this forum we see that's not the case, as everyone here is in effect a little more hardcore than the mainstream, and the split on devices is pretty broad.

Really, all the devices handle non-DRM content about the same. Both Sony and Amazon have their own DRM format (and even the Cybook has it's one format it can accept), and outside of that they handle one primary format for ebooks. Pdf doesn't count, since most people don't find it very usable on the Sony; conversion from other formats also doesn't count, as the end result of what you put on your reader is one primary format.

I think they're both really nice devices, and considered them both for quite a while before I ordered one.

These discussions really just boil down to personal preferences, mostly related to design or a couple of extra features. Anything more is just looking to stoke up the old tired Mac vs. PC flames. I would hope we're all better than that here.

David

[tsgreer]

Originally Posted by NatCh

I think one thing that brings this sort of anecdotal evidence into some context is the difference in demographics that Amazon and Sony are playing to.

This pretty much doesn't apply to any Kindle owners here, they're pretty demographically similar to the Sony owners here.

Please read that sentence twice before you get on my case.

I think Amazon's customers are mainly folks who didn't know e-reader devices existed until the Kindle appeared on Amazon's home-page one day. I think they're folks who mainly read best-sellers, read them once, and then go on to the next one, never caring if they can ever read them again. These two things combine to mean that they're mostly unaware that they can get content anywhere but Amazon, so they get all their content there.

Whereas Sony's main demographic is probably more like folks in this community: they're more likely to have known about e-reading for years, know all sorts of places besides Sony's store to get content, and how to convert it to work on their Reader. They're also more likely to avoid DRM when they can (because they know about the long-term hazards of it, and want to be able to access their books again later), which further reduces the likelihood, or at least the frequency, of them buying from Sony.


Amazon has clearly (in my view) made and marketed the Kindle for the purpose of selling content, the way they're marketing it demonstrates that. Unsurprisingly, it's working. Folks argue that Sony has the same thing in mind, but I don't really think that's the case. I think the more viral marketing approach they have taken is much more likely to reach folks like those who hang out here. Especially since several of their efforts have been pretty well targeted at MobileRead, specifically, and several more at us along with others like Engadget and Gizmodo.


As an anecdotal evidence to support what I'm suggesting: in December of 2006 I showed my shiny new PRS500 to my family at Christmastime. My mom, a Library Science PhD, was completely disinterested at the time. One year later she's all het up about the Kindle, and even more excited because her department is getting her one to play with. The only difference I can see is that the Kindle is on Amazon's front page -- nearly as I can tell, most of the books she works with (Juvenile Literature) are not available in Kindle Editions. She wants it for reading bestsellers and doesn't care if she never reads them again -- just like most Kindle users I've talked to outside this community.


There you go, that's my theory, salt to taste.

Well said! I totally agree with you 100%.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by crionox

I don't see how the above examples are relevant. In effect, you're saying that the "hardcore" readers will gravitate towards the Sony. Even on this forum we see that's not the case, as everyone here is in effect a little more hardcore than the mainstream, and the split on devices is pretty broad.

I think Natch meant that a person had to be at least moderately techie in order to get content on to the Sony Reader, and that it's much easier to get content on to the Kindle (Amazon does most of it for you).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I think Natch meant that a person had to be at least moderately techie in order to get content on to the Sony Reader, and that it's much easier to get content on to the Kindle (Amazon does most of it for you).

I disagree. I think what was meant is that the Kindle user overall is a buy it, download it, read it, toss it type. Whereas the Sony 500/505 user is a buy it, download it, read it, want to keep it, might read it again type. Thus in order to be the Sony type, you should be more tech savvy or have access to a tech savvy person to help. But that's not to say that some Kindle users don't want to be like Sony users and visa-versa.

[kilofox]

To me its clear that Amazon saw what Apple did with the iPod and iTunes, and copied their model. Which works quite well I might add.

Hardware-wise there isnt a big gap between the two except the connectivity capability, which puts the Kindle above the Sony feature wise. Factor in the Amazon store (iAmazon so to speak) and its all around a better experience IMO.

Sony's backend services are way behind Amazon, had they offered a more compelling online store that was OS neutral (big mistake) it would have been a different story.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by crionox

I don't see how the above examples are relevant. In effect, you're saying that the "hardcore" readers will gravitate towards the Sony.

That's certainly not what I mean to be saying.

I'm trying to say that I think most of those who have bought Kindles are likely to look mainly or exclusively to Amazon for e-content, but that those who bought Readers are more unlikley to even mostly look to Sony for their e-content. I see that as a theory about how "e-book aware" each set of buyers are, and I don't see a correlation between that and how hardcore their reading habits might be.

I tried to specifically phrase my comments to exclude people here -- at least as far as Kindles go -- because I think our Kindle owners are more similar to our Sony owners than they are to average Kindle owners. I see this as being a result of the marketing targeting that I see on the part of each company, that I mentioned above.

Originally Posted by crionox

These discussions really just boil down to personal preferences, mostly related to design or a couple of extra features.

You're very correct, excepting of course those cases where some specific user need makes one set of hardware more usable in a concrete way.

Is it so far fetched that folks with similar preferences might be similar in other ways? I'm not talking about a cause-and-effect, mind you, just a correlation.

In any case, I don't have a problem with different folks having different preferences, either from one another or from me. And I certainly didn't mean any of my comments as demeaning or derogatory to anyone, only as observations.

Originally Posted by crionox

Anything more is just looking to stoke up the old tired Mac vs. PC flames.

Not necessarily, I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to explore in this area, without it being simple sniping.

Originally Posted by crionox

I would hope we're all better than that here.

We are, generally, and we work pretty hard to keep it that way.

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I think Natch meant that a person had to be at least moderately techie in order to get content on to the Sony Reader, and that it's much easier to get content on to the Kindle (Amazon does most of it for you).

Something very like that: I meant that the average Sony user was more likely to be, as you say, "at least moderately techie" than the average Kindle user (again, not talking about MobileRead Kindle users), largely because of the marketing approach the two companies have taken, and the people those approaches are most likely to reach.

Originally Posted by DaleDe

While we may know that the Sony can be used outside the USA with a little extra work that is not common knowledge I believe and certainly not advertised on the Sony site. I believe the average user on the street will think that both the Amazon and the Sony are targeted at the USA.

I think that the U.S. is the market that Sony and Amazon view themselves as being targeted at (certainly it is for e-books), so a U.S. only scope to the discussion of who's selling more e-books is probably appropriate.

[WillAdams]

The big advantages to my mind for the Sony are:

- size --- I've got shirt pockets it'll fit into --- not even the shirts I had tailored to have pockets to accommodate my Newton MP100 will hold an Amazon Kindle

- .pdf support --- the Kindle's nicer fonts somewhat ameliorates this, but it's a big matter to me.

William