Sony Talks Sales Numbers

[NatCh]

No worries, completely understandable.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by stxopher

I'm surprised the Sony sales of books is as high as it is.

I am 99.9% certain that these numbers included eClassics SONY gives away as part of their offer.

Note say 3Million downloaded not purchased

=X=

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by =X=

I am 99.9% certain that these numbers included eClassics SONY gives away as part of their offer.

Note say 3Million downloaded not purchased

=X=

I think so too.

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by =X=

I am 99.9% certain that these numbers included eClassics SONY gives away as part of their offer.

Note say 3Million downloaded not purchased

=X=

Please elaborate on what basis you feel so confident. If you are correct, then only a small percentage of the 300,000 Reader customers downloaded their 100 free Sony Classics. And it would also mean that, on average, Reader owners have purchased a lot fewer than 10 ebooks from Sony.

[NatCh]

You find that so difficult to believe, VR? I only downloaded a couple of their free "classics," and that was mostly out of curiosity. I suspect that most folks didn't download them -- most folks seem to be interested in newer stuff. Perhaps a side effect of being forced to read "classics" in public school.

On the other hand, I've actually bought more books from Sony's book store than I thought I would, probably about 20 or so -- not nearly as many as I have from Baen. I tend to get things from Sony that I don't expect to want to read again later (so I won't be bothered if they're not available for download again later), and I find the convenience of getting them pre-formatted in BBeB is nice (I can usually read them on the L setting ).

[smithno]

I for one did not bother to download the free Classics from the Sony site. I think I only bought one or two token books right after I got my 505. Between here and Feedbooks for free books and an occasionaly Fictionwise books, I rarely even look at the Sony ebook site.

[purl4peace]

What I would be more interested in the distribution of sales of readers since 2006. I would suspect that Sales of Sony readers took off last year with the release of the PRS-505 and since they could "piggy-back" on the attention the Kindle was getting.

Prior to the Kindle being announced, ebook readers were not really "mainstream". However, once the Kindle was announced, because it was being introduced to the masses, every article generally included some mention of Sony as their main competitor. (thus giving folks another option to look at). Plus, once Sony put their readers in Borders stores before Christmas last year so that people could play with one, it took a "gee -- that sounds cool" theoretical toy to "Wow -- I want one!".

In response to the radleyp who asked several pages back "who considers the Sony to be the better made device?"

I DO! I have talked to several kindle owners over on Amazon forums who indicated they were on their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th kindle because they dropped it and the plastic split apart. Drop a Sony? That metal case isn't coming apart any time soon.

And I do think that Kindle's supply issues will be a plus for Sony. I know several people who decided to buy a Sony when they saw that it would be months before they would ever see a Kindle. American's aren't known for delayed gratification -- even if Oprah tells them to.

As far as the Sony downloads, I think the folks that buy sonys are the ones who tended to already have a previous generation device and were more interested in converting their library rather than starting over. I have a Cybook with several .mobi books. Once I discovered this forum and Calibre for converting file types, I use Sony very little. In general, they don't have the books I'm looking for anyway.

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if Amazon would open their ebook store to other formats. I think they are missing a fair amount of business here since it is second nature for many people to go to Amazon for their books. Once the Oprah effect has worn off and the Gen 2 Kindle comes out and proves to be only cosmetically different from Gen 1, I think Amazon will start to realize the market is selling content -- not hardware.

Heck -- that is how Sony made its fortune. They virtually gave away walkmans because the profit margin on CDs was so huge.

[tech_au]

Based on Sony's figures what do you reckon is the total number of ereaders counting all brands such as Kindle, Cybook, Iliad, Bebook and Hanlin that have been sold.
I figure somewhere near a million.
Quite good for an infant technology but a tiny chunk out of the pbook market at present I think

[Laz116]

Originally Posted by NatCh

You find that so difficult to believe, VR? I only downloaded a couple of their free "classics," and that was mostly out of curiosity. I suspect that most folks didn't download them -- most folks seem to be interested in newer stuff. Perhaps a side effect of being forced to read "classics" in public school.
.

Well if everybody only downloades a couple of the free classics, then it really doesn't matter that much in the overall statistics does it?

According to your own experience, which you use as an argument, we might as well say: Ok, one fifth of the 3 million is their free giveaway. The rest is purchased books = 2,4 million.

[bbusybookworm]

Personally, Sonys figures seem pretty ok.

300,000 while not that high are pretty reasonable, if you factor in the almost complete lack of marketing by Sony in the past.

Also, Sony only started selling outside the US a couple of months ago, and if I remeber some figures that were bandied about, Europeans on average read more then Americans.

So, I'll be interested to see what their figures for the UK are, especially as I've seen Stores often out of stock. Also, Sony was actually pretty proactive here in publicizing the reader here, with a lot of coverage in the newspapers and on TV.

I'll also be interested in figures from Booken and Hanlin. Didn't the Bebook guys claim 300,00 units sold a short while ago?

As for the Book, while I have the PRS 500, I never bothered with the Sony bookstore because a) No US Credit Card and b) No crack for the DRM. After a few bad experiences in the past, I completely refuse to purchase books whose DRM cannot be stripped.

I also tend to change gadgets regularly, so I expected to change my reader sometime in the future, and did not want to be tied into Sony's proprietary format (ATRAC again!)

Having said that, I've actually really increased by reading, with both Purchased books as well as Free ones free here and other sources.

I've also used the Sony, and my Cybook to convince a number of people to buy Readers or at least convince them to consider getting one.

I think that the Word of Mouth evangelism and hands on experience is probably going to be what really gets it into peoples mindsets.

The biggest problem is the supposed "Expert" reviewers who don't understand the concept of READING and pan it for not having colour, net access, video etc. I wish they'll learn to do a Little RESEARCH, or heck just Google to learn a little more then what's on the Press Release. <Rant over>

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by NatCh

You find that so difficult to believe, VR? I only downloaded a couple of their free "classics," and that was mostly out of curiosity. I suspect that most folks didn't download them -- most folks seem to be interested in newer stuff. Perhaps a side effect of being forced to read "classics" in public school.

On the other hand, I've actually bought more books from Sony's book store than I thought I would, probably about 20 or so -- not nearly as many as I have from Baen. I tend to get things from Sony that I don't expect to want to read again later (so I won't be bothered if they're not available for download again later), and I find the convenience of getting them pre-formatted in BBeB is nice (I can usually read them on the L setting ).

But I don't think, and this is a guess, that you or I are at all typical Sony Reader buyers. You and I hang out here where we have better public domain books to download. And you and I know of other stores to buy new books in Sony-format. While I'm not saying the average buyer is stupid (uh, wait, let me think about that for a minute), I'm just assuming that more than half of them don't even know MR or Baen, etc. exist. If that's true, then you have a buyer of a new gadget and they have the opportunity to download 100 books free within a certain amount of time from the one and only bookstore they know about. Okay, it's Dickens (who?) and not Rowling, but even I had to make sure I didn't let that offer slip away.

Even if just a quarter of the owners did what I did, that's 7.5 million downloaded books which is several times as many as Sony is claiming. And that leaves no room for even one purchased book. Nope. I don't buy it. *If* the numbers are correct, then I'm pretty sure that the 3 million refers to sold books other than the Sony Classics. It is the sales of those books that Sony wants to tell the publishers about anyway.

And, as I mentioned earlier, if that's the case, then Sony Reader owners have, on average, only purchased 10 books each from Sony. I don't know what a typical buy rate is for avid book readers but I would have guessed that over a period of several or many months it was bound to be a lot higher than that. A pretty depressing result, in my opinion. Maybe they found that there just weren't that many good books for sale at Sony.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

If you are correct, then only a small percentage of the 300,000 Reader customers downloaded their 100 free Sony Classics.

Count me as one of those who has never downloaded the "100 free Sony classics." I wasn't much interested in rereading many of those books, and I suspect that a lot of Sony Reader buyers also were not interested in reading those books. It takes a lot of assuming to assume that most Reader buyers downloaded the Sony classics -- and you know what they say about assuming .

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

But I don't think, and this is a guess, that you or I are at all typical Sony Reader buyers. You and I hang out here where we have better public domain books to download. And you and I know of other stores to buy new books in Sony-format. While I'm not saying the average buyer is stupid (uh, wait, let me think about that for a minute), I'm just assuming that more than half of them don't even know MR or Baen, etc. exist. If that's true, then you have a buyer of a new gadget and they have the opportunity to download 100 books free within a certain amount of time from the one and only bookstore they know about.

Well, when you put it that way, I see your point.

[CleverClothe]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Thanks to MR I am aware of other places to buy books for my Sony 505, but with the exception of Baen, I find that I do buy my books at the Sony store rather than elsewhere.

So far -- at least for the books I'm interested in -- Sony has had the best price or very close to the best price. Occasionally Fictionwise is a dollar or so cheaper but only if I join Fictionwise, something I haven't yet convinced myself to do. I think its my older age. I wouldn't mind paying the annual FW fee for a straight 20% additional discount off a title (similar to how Barnes & Noble works its "club"), but I don't want to deal with micropay and I don't want to carry "balances" -- I simply want to buy a book, preferably with a discount, and walk away.

I know a lot of MR folk like BooksOnBoard, but for the books I want, it has been significantly more expensive than the Sony store.

I also must admit to a certain hesitancy to buying books that aren't in either the Sony or ePub format and converting them.

The member benefit is a discount, not a rebate. And most of the rebates are on secure formats, which they don't have for the Sony.

So unless you are going to do format shifting, you shouldn't run into much micropay even if you are a member.

[lilac_jive]

I'm suprised at all of the Sony EBookStore hate (or dislike) here. I actually like the store and the selection. The price is sometimes slightly high, but 1. still cheaper than the real thing and 2. I spent $300 on a device, so I won't quibble about a few lost bucks if I had checked out on another site.

Plus by buying books there, I help ensure that Sony can still maintain recurring revenue and keep the store opened and well stocked, which keeps my device from becoming obsolete.