Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
It seems to me that logically, it has to be units, since ebooks are priced lower than pbooks, so the percentage for units will always be higher than the percentage for dollars, and Amazon - or any seller - would always use the higher percentage.
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I suspect that you're right. And, of course, your statement on the usefulness of the higher percentage as a means of advertising is well taken.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
My guess is that it's a measurement of sales among Kindle owners. The reason I think this is the same as above: Amazon will always use the higher percentage, and measuring sales limited to Kindle owners will always give a higher percentage than measuring across all buyers.
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That's quite true, but that's certainly not how the 35% figure is being presented.
I could actually buy that figure if they qualify it within the bounds of Kindle account holders.
The problem with admitting that (if only Kindle accounts was the actual case) would be that you could then twist the figure into saying: "Look, even with Kindle versions available, Kindle owners
still prefer paper two-to-one!"
Thanks for the reply. Your remarks on the 'puffery-factor' are quite true.
Of course they'll skew the numbers in the most favorable light to prove their wonderfulness.
I just like to have
enough detail to know what is puffery and what is a valid claim.
The Amazon claims are woefully lacking in detail.
This brings to mind the original Kindle debut. They sold out their initial lot in a week or so. Then they use that as proof of the high demand for the reader.
If their first lot was ten or twenty thousand units, that would have impressed the heck out of me. I don't think Nuvomedia sold ten thousand Rocket
eBooks (I still use mine on a daily basis and my serial number is something like 7300) over the life of the unit.
If their initial lot was 500 or a thousand units, that would thoroughly underwhelm me, since there are easily enough gadget-geek first-buyers out there to exhaust that-sized lot. Then amazon can do what it did: claim the quick sellout shows huge pent up demand for their reader.
As with all-things-Kindle, we have
nothing to base an argument on.