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I wonder about the percentages that are bandied about.
Overwhelmingly, my book sales come from Amazon.com, U.S. I don't know why. My book's available in epub, no geo-restrictions, it's at B&N, Kobo, Sony, Apple, it's in all the Amazon stores. But in any given month, 98% or more of my sales are Kindle, U.S.A.
I know that some people report better sales through B&N. And I know that you can't extrapolate from a single, anecdotal experience with one book. But when people start talking about "exclusives," I feel that I'm already "exclusive," though not by choice.
Philosophically, I'm always in favor of open standards and a ragtag group of little guys banding together to battle an overwhelming Empire. Sadly, the little guys have been squabbling among themselves with competitive DRM schemes and a kludgy reliance on Adobe Digital Editions that destroy the "open standard" and complicate the shopping experience, while the Empire has offered seamless integration across devices and a shopping experience that is second to none.
When you add interoperability on various devices, it feels a lot less monopolistic to consumers. I have two Kindles now (for me and my wife) and the Kindle app on my Asus netbook, my Compaq desktop computer, and my Apple iPhone. Kind of hard to feel "limited to the Kindle" when every electronic device I own except my TV and toaster will read the books.
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