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Originally Posted by Notjohn
Great post, thanks. But note that R-to-L and ideograms aren't a problem: we can publish right now through the JP site and have our books appear in Japanese (aka mostly Chinese) ideograms.
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Only in KF8, Nj. Which is to say, only partly. When I say, supported, I mean, readable across the entire pantheon of Amazon devices. And it's not merely the old KF7's, K4iPad and Cloud Reader won't display embedded fonts, either, which are required for unsupported languages.
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So Chinese (and Cryllic and Hindi and so forth) must be doable, IF ONLY. But since our e-books aren't available on the CN store, though our print editions generally are, I suspect that it is the Chinese government that blocks them, and would presumably block Amazon. Even if it didn't, Amazon would certainly be wise to hesitate! As for Russia, they'd be mad to go in there. India and Brazil do have Kindle stores, but India of course is handicapped by its multiplicity of languages and perhaps (I don't know) scripts. There are probably more literate English speakers/readers in India than in the United States, yet the (English-language) e-book market there is tiny, to judge by my sales.
For me, UK is a distant second to the Com store, and DE and AU generally swap around for third place. My Apple and B&N e-books sales generally exceed those of all the Amazon stores outside the US. The others (Kobo etc on the one hand, the lesser Kindle stores on the other hand) don't do much at all, but they do add up over time.
My sales peaked on Amazon in January 2012 and declined steadily thereafter, which fact I attributed to the advent of Kindle Select and the influx of new publishers it attracted, and their subsequent race to the bottom in price. Sales have now stabilized and indeed have climbed a bit, perhaps to the level of 2011.
In any event, I think the January effect (all those Christmas Kindles downloading books!) is gone forever. I no longer see much of a seasonal effect, except that sales stall on three-day holidays. (Except for this one! Gosh, maybe I really have turned the corner.)
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Dunno. As I said--no fonts, no languages above and beyond what's already supported. And L-t-r is also only doable on KF8.
Hitch