Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
By the way, Amazon's recently reported unit sales ratios--1.15 ebooks per paperback, 3 ebooks per hardcover--works out to a 45/40/15 sales rate of ebooks/paperbacks/hardcovers.
It's pretty clear that Amazon is already where the music industry is in digital sales and *still* growing ebook share, so setting the bar at 50% unit share is pretty low, even granted that as the industry leader, Amazon is several years ahead of their competition. Because Amazon is clearly pointing out that, given abundant, reasonably-priced ebooks, readers are *not* so wedded to print that the 50% mark is out of reach. More, with the dual examples of Amazon's ebook success and Borders' deathspiral, most retailers will *have* to look to growing their ebook markets to survive. Essentially retailers have to follow Amazon, as B&N is doing, or risk following Borders.
All in all, given the current growth rate, I would expect to see the ratios stabilize at something like 60/30/10 unit sales in the near future. And that is with the price-fix scheme in place. If Agency pricing should vanish, publishers are going to be facing a *lot* of downwards pressure on pbook pricing. Which might explain why they're actively looking for signs of hope even from industries that don't map particularly well to theirs.
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One thing I wonder about using Amazon's unit sales numbers to project is all those ebooks that were free promos and $0.99 - 2.99 indy books they sell, and if/how they're included in the ratio.
