Market share of ereaders?

[Christopher Wood]

I'd really love to see a detailed study of which ereaders are out there, in what quantities. For browsers, it's easy to find a market share report that breaks down percentages of Chrome, IE (all flavors), Firefox, Safari, etc.; the reports don't all agree, but at least they're out there.

Let's say we're developing a series of titles for the ebook market (in fact, we are). We'd like to target the most widely owned devices. Is it just the Kindle and iPad? On iPad, does everybody run an Epub reader or just the Kindle app? What's the Nook market share ... 5%? ... 19%? Can we ignore the Kobo because only 0.0003% of the people out there actually have one?

Anybody got an ereader market share report? A couple of us googled around for hours and found basically nothing.

[wallcraft]

See Kindle vs Nook US market share. Note that only reports from this year are significant because growth has been explosive. Amazon never says but B&N claims 25% share, see Barnes & Noble Unveils Newest Nook.

These are for the US, worldwide estimates are usually based on E-Ink screen sales and are always from unnamed sources. I have not seen even these indirect numbers recently.

[HarryT]

You really only have to concern yourself with two formats for your book: Mobipocket (for the Kindle) and ePub (for everything else). It doesn't really matter to you, as a book producer, what the market share is.

[ucfgrad93]

It is hard to know for sure since Amazon does not release sales numbers for Kindles. Without that, anything you see online is going to be an estimate.

[Christopher Wood]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You really only have to concern yourself with two formats for your book: Mobipocket (for the Kindle) and ePub (for everything else).

I understand that the iPad is a rather popular device to read ebooks on -- #1 or #2 according to some reports. For the iPad there's an app called "Kindle for iPad." It renders Mobi files very differently from a Kindle 3.

I can't, in fair conscience, release Mobi ebooks that render great on a Kindle 3, and not concern myself with how they look on the iPad ... or on any of the other Mobi readers, for that matter.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Christopher Wood

I understand that the iPad is a rather popular device to read ebooks on -- #1 or #2 according to some reports. For the iPad there's an app called "Kindle for iPad." It renders Mobi files very differently from a Kindle 3.

I can't, in fair conscience, release Mobi ebooks that render great on a Kindle 3, and not concern myself with how they look on the iPad ... or on any of the other Mobi readers, for that matter.

I read on both the Kindle 3 and on the Kindle for iPad app myself; I have to admit that I haven't personally encountered the formatting differences that you mention.

[Christopher Wood]

I bought a K3 just to format for it. Now I feel the need to buy a Nook, so I can personally test my Epub code. iPads are somewhat pricier, but I still wish I had some way to test for KiPad directly.

@HarryT: I'm involved in a project that requires a fair amount of block indenting and outdenting, and the solutions I arrive at for the K3 are reported (by a friend) not to render on the KiPad. I'm speaking 2nd-hand here, obviously. But then there's KforPC, which doesn't render worth a crap; and I see screenshots from the Booken Cybook, which drops some of my indenting; etc.

Ah, for the golden days, when we thought we'd have standards. *sigh*

[HarryT]

As the saying goes, the nice thing about standards is that there are so many different ones to choose from .

OK, I take your point about things like block indents - they've probably not been present in the books I've been reading. Kindle for iPad, though, is a nice app - I very much enjoy reading on it.

[Christopher Wood]

Yeh, reflowable text is a great idea, but once the novelty wears off, one tends to want to go straight back to a PDF or some such formatted page.

I should mention, I've been a typesetter for the last 25 years. (Nowadays my b.card reads "graphic designer," but the work is much the same, except for the kids nowadays not knowing wtf a ligature or an inchmark is, and mixing Helvetica and Arial with abandon.)

[chas0039]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

It is hard to know for sure since Amazon does not release sales numbers for Kindles. Without that, anything you see online is going to be an estimate.

I read a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that reverse engineered the numbers and came up with close to 50%.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by chas0039

I read a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that reverse engineered the numbers and came up with close to 50%.

Got a link to that article? I'd love to see how they came up with that figure.

[chas0039]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

Got a link to that article? I'd love to see how they came up with that figure.

Unfortunately not. I read the good old paper version and the article was a few weeks ago so it is already recycled.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

It is hard to know for sure since Amazon does not release sales numbers for Kindles. Without that, anything you see online is going to be an estimate.

I would call it a pure guess and when articles are released as though the guesses were true, they lose any sense of credibility.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Christopher Wood

I bought a K3 just to format for it. Now I feel the need to buy a Nook, so I can personally test my Epub code. iPads are somewhat pricier, but I still wish I had some way to test for KiPad directly.

Just get an iPad and you have all you need. You can test with iBooks, Kindle App, and Bluefire Reader (for ePub with ADE). Also, get the Kindle Previewer for Windows as well and you won't need to buy multiple dedicated readers.

Oh and also get Reader Library for Windows so you can see how your ePub will look on a 6 inch screen.

[HarryT]

But in a very real sense it doesn't really matter what the figure is. Christopher simply wants to know what devices to ensure his book works successfully on. Kindle is number one; whether the figure for its market share is 25%, 50%, or whatever, nobody denies that it is number one, so it's an important device to produce a version of his book for. That's really all that matter here.