Effect of Kindle on Sony's Content Offerings

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Damn you Disney. Where is Macaulay when we need him?

BOb

Mr. Macaulay, he dead. A penny for the old guy...


Xenophon
(with apologies to Joseph Conrad)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Mr. Macaulay, he dead. A penny for the old guy...


Xenophon
(with apologies to Joseph Conrad)

Yes, I know that. If he were alive he would be turning over in his grave if he found out how we changed his perfectly planned out copyright lengths.

BOb

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Yes, I know that. If he were alive he would be turning over in his grave if he found out how we changed his perfectly planned out copyright lengths.

BOb

I'm sure he would. But I was really just taking the opportunity to misappropriate a line from Heart of Darkness.

Xenophon
P.S. Absolutely lovely mixed metaphor, there.

[vivaldirules]

In the past two weeks, Sony have added 650 new titles (a 1.5% increase) and they now have nearly 44,000 ebooks for sale at their eBook Store. Sony have averaged 96 new ebooks per day to their offerings since September and that number has been falling for the past four months.

Amazon's site today indicates that they have over 131,000 ebooks for sale for the Kindle with over 3200 new titles added in the past two weeks (a 2.5% increase). They've averaged 193 new titles per day since November and that number has been increasing for the past few months.

Meanwhile, over at MobileRead, 150 new ebooks have been added in the past two weeks (a 2.8% increase) to our collection of FREE (but legal) ebooks which now totals 5320. We've been adding an average of over 15 new ebooks a day since last fall.

[vivaldirules]

If you've followed this thread at all since I started it, you may have noticed that I'm firmly in the habit of monitoring and reporting every two weeks the number of new and total titles available at both Sony and Amazon. I've only been doing this because I'm interested in the big picture (i.e., are ebooks taking off and are the number of new titles available going to skyrocket or are we in a holding pattern?) and I'm also curious about the Sony vs. Amazon battle (i.e., who's winning and is there any evidence that either might be having second thoughts about the ebook business?). But I was wondering if it made any sense to do the same monitoring of other ebook vendor sites. Would anyone find that of interest? If so, which vendors should be monitored - Fictionwise, Mobipocket (or is that just a slice of the Amazon pie?), others? And does anyone have any numerical historical data to start with?

[pwalker8]

I can't say that I've seen any books that I was interested in that was not available at Sony or Amazon, but was elsewhere, but then again I haven't done a survey or anything. Pretty much, I'll look first at Sony. If it's not available at Sony, then I look to see if it's available for the Kindle. If it's not available for the Kindle, then I look at Fictionwise.

So far I haven't seen any books that I was looking for that was not available at Sony, but was at one of the other two sites. I'm sure there are books that are in Amazon but not Sony, but so far they haven't been books that I was looking for. Perhaps it's specific publishers who have Amazon only deals, or something like that. I know that Amazon has a lot more books listed and has been adding more, but I'm just not sure what these books are. Because of the numbers that you have been posting, I've been considering getting a Kindle at some point, but so far there hasn't been the "gee, I really want that book, Amazon has it and Sony doesn't" moment yet.

[vivaldirules]

Thanks, pwalker8. I've had a similar experience to yours in that I haven't been terribly more disappointed with Sony's selection compared with Amazon's for what I've been looking for. So I've had no reason to reconsider my Sony Reader and think about a Kindle. As to other ebook vendors, I'm thinking there's little point at the moment to tally their available content, too, since I don't think we're going to learn anything new. I may keep an eye on the Fictionwise, though, where today they indicate that they have 50,666 items for sale but then there's the question about how many of those are multiple counts, self-published material, etc.

[JSWolf]

It's not about the numbe rof eBooks available, but about if the eBooks you want are available and if they are, it's ok that Amazon has more as long as SOny has what you want.

[jerryleejr]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's not about the numbe rof eBooks available, but about if the eBooks you want are available and if they are, it's ok that Amazon has more as long as SOny has what you want.

That would be fine if we were going on current offerings, However there is no way to predict what future releases will make it to the Sony store, I have found that if there is something you really want in lrf an email to the publisher may help out. But you still have some that are strictly print version i.e. J.K. Rowling, and Danielle Steel. Also you have some series of books that may never see the entire collection make it to an ebook format. In reality there are enough titles available for all devices to keep everyone reading for years, if you cant find that must have title for your reader then get the print version and save it for around the house reading. I am sure you will still have several titles loaded on your Device to keep you busy for the time you are away from the night stand.

JJ

[pwalker8]

Of course, one of the points of having a ebook reader is to cut back on the books laying around the house. I'm running out of room.

I ran across an interesting Mac reading program called Stanza. It reads most of the major formats and seems pretty nice. What make this pertinent to this thread is that on the company web page, they are running a survey of what devices people own. The Kindle is by far the most popular device according to the survey with Sony in 5th or 6th place. Of course, some of that may simply be because the Kindle is much more Mac friendly than the Sony eReader is and Stanza is somewhat Kindle oriented, but it is a data point.

[jerryleejr]

Sorry duplicate see original below

[jerryleejr]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I ran across an interesting Mac reading program called Stanza. It reads most of the major formats and seems pretty nice. What make this pertinent to this thread is that on the company web page, they are running a survey of what devices people own. The Kindle is by far the most popular device according to the survey with Sony in 5th or 6th place. Of course, some of that may simply be because the Kindle is much more Mac friendly than the Sony eReader is and Stanza is somewhat Kindle oriented, but it is a data point.

I would think Sony would be in last place on the Stanza Poll because unless there has been an update in the last couple weeks. Stanza does not export to .lrf format. You would have to Export to another format and then convert for use on the PRS.

[jerryleejr]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I can't say that I've seen any books that I was interested in that was not available at Sony or Amazon, but was elsewhere, but then again I haven't done a survey or anything. Pretty much, I'll look first at Sony. If it's not available at Sony, then I look to see if it's available for the Kindle. If it's not available for the Kindle, then I look at Fictionwise.

So far I haven't seen any books that I was looking for that was not available at Sony, but was at one of the other two sites. I'm sure there are books that are in Amazon but not Sony, but so far they haven't been books that I was looking for. Perhaps it's specific publishers who have Amazon only deals, or something like that. I know that Amazon has a lot more books listed and has been adding more, but I'm just not sure what these books are. Because of the numbers that you have been posting, I've been considering getting a Kindle at some point, but so far there hasn't been the "gee, I really want that book, Amazon has it and Sony doesn't" moment yet.

I would have to agree I have only found a handful less the 10 books on amazon that wasnt on the Sony site, However my biggest issue is Price, After purchasing 3 or 4 books on the Sony site you could get one extra at the kindle Store, In Sony's Defense They are in the process of price matching a couple titles for me that were significantly cheaper at the Kindle Store.

JJ

[vivaldirules]

In the past two weeks Sony have added 1750 new titles (a 4.0% increase) and now have about 45,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers with an average of 98 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since September. The greatest percentage increases are in the categories of Religion (13%) and Juvenile Fiction (50%).

In the same period Amazon have added 4800 new titles (a 3.7% increase) and now have about 136,000 ebooks for sale for the Kindle with an average of 202 new ebooks per day added to their offerings since November.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by jerryleejr

I would think Sony would be in last place on the Stanza Poll because unless there has been an update in the last couple weeks. Stanza does not export to .lrf format. You would have to Export to another format and then convert for use on the PRS.

Not necessarily. While it doesn't support Lrf, it's one of the few book reader software programs for the mac. As far as I know, it doesn't support any of the drm'ed formats, just the non drm'ed versions. Thus, I would expect that it would appeal to mac readers who read non drm'ed books, i.e. public domain books, books published without drm (aka baen books), or books that were either scanned or had the drm cracked. It's a data point. It is biased toward the kindle since it advertises itself as a program that will format non drm text for the kindle, but I did find the order of the non kindle book readers of interest.