Kindle Books Outsell Hardcovers

[GA Russell]

Here's the link to the Wall St. Journal article on this story.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...Tabs%3Darticle

I added my take on the eBook industry to the readers' comments section.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...abs%3Dcomments

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Bremen Cole

@DMcCunney

I forgot about the new Android Kindle app.... when the waves of Android tablets hit over the next several months, Amazon is already there and ready to sell. Sony could have done it like Amazon has, but instead Sony is drying up and will soon blow away..... Amazon deserves their success, that are working to get the business!

We'll see. There was a lot of discussion back when Amazon introduced the Kindle and Sony was pushing early versions of the reader, about who would still be standing when the dust settled. Part of the concern was that Sony had previously demonstrated an on-again/off-again attitude. Sony used to be a major competitor in the PDA market, competing with devices from Palm, Handspring, and others with their Clie line of Palm OS PDAs. Sony folded the Clie line - it was profitable, but not profitable enough, and Sony senior management decided they could make more money investing their funds elsewhere, so there was some question about whether the ebook reader market was large enough for them to profitably address, and Sony's determination to stay in the market.

The problem is that Sony is a consumer electronics manufacturer. For them, it's about the devices. Amazon and B&N are retailers. For them, it's about the books. Amazon has enough penetration now with the Kindle Reader for the PC, iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, that if they never sold another actual Kindle, I'm not sure the result would be visible on their bottom line. The Nook uses Android under the hood, so I wouldn't be at all surprised about a B&N reader app for something like the Motorola Droid. They want to sell us ebooks, and they'd be foolish to restrict that to only dedicated devices they made.

Sony made a wise decision in shifting to support ePub as their primary format instead of their previous proprietary format, broadening the choices available to users. They were no longer locked into the Sony Store as a source of commercial titles.
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Dennis

[kjk]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The problem is that Sony is a consumer electronics manufacturer. For them, it's about the devices.

Sony made a wise decision in shifting to support ePub as their primary format instead of their previous proprietary format, broadening the choices available to users.
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Dennis

So, shouldn't Sony allow a Kindle App on their readers? That would be a win/win!

[Bremen Cole]

Save this post...... I predict Sony will be out of the ebook biz in less than 3 years... And I give them a 50% Chance of being around in two years. They started the mainstream ebook/reader movement. But they gave it away to Amazon (and hardware wise Apple). Just like they used to own the portable music market, but gave it away to Apple.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by kjk

So, shouldn't Sony allow a Kindle App on their readers? That would be a win/win!

It's not just Sony that would have to allow it. Amazon owns the app and would have to do the port. Can you really see Amazon porting the Kindle app to a device made by an arch-competitor?

And the Sony Reader, B&N nook, and Amazon Kindle all have the ebook viewer software in firmware. The Kindle app for PC, iPhone, iPad and Android is an app, that can be installed on a device that does other things as well.

Adding the capability to read Mobipocket format ebook files to the Sony Reader would require a firmware upgrade.

I really don't see this happening.
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Dennis

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Remember the story about the goose and the golden eggs?
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Dennis

actually, if the goose that laid the golden egg HADN'T been killed, the entire kingdom would have gone into an economic tailspin, been destabilized and fallen to a power hungry neighbor.

Yeah, I remember that goose. Obviously you didn't think the story through. I thought we were grownups here who looked to the future instead of hollering and crying hyberbole about our favorite likes/dislikes?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

actually, if the goose that laid the golden egg HADN'T been killed, the entire kingdom would have gone into an economic tailspin, been destabilized and fallen to a power hungry neighbor.

Nope. Gold is valuable because it's scarce. No single goose could produce that much gold...

Yeah, I remember that goose. Obviously you didn't think the story through. I thought we were grownups here who looked to the future instead of hollering and crying hyberbole about our favorite likes/dislikes?

I guess I should have been more explicit about my point.

So the publishers "die, already". Then what? Where do you expect to get your books, what do you expect them to cost, and what makes you think they'll be any good?

There's an awful lot of self-published stuff out there. A good chunk is self-published because a regular commercial publisher wouldn't touch it, and well, there's a reason they wouldn't...

Kill the goose and you'll still find plenty of eggs, but they are far more likely to be rotten than gold.
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Dennis

[kilohertz53]

The question is, does every download of a Kindle freebie count as a "sale"? If so, that would really skew the data.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by kilohertz53

The question is, does every download of a Kindle freebie count as a "sale"? If so, that would really skew the data.

you could argue that for a lot of the data around the web on e-books. they may even include those that are provided on new devices ?

[Mememememe]

The Amazon report doesn't mean all that much. Hardcover sales aren't a big part of their business, anyway. Such is the case with most booksellers, but it's particularly the case with Amazon, which has always been heavily paperback, almost to the point of exclusivity. Online retailers like Amazon and Indigo are terrible outlets for hardcover.

Of course, Amazon's figures are unit sales. If they put dollar amounts to their ebook and hardcover sales, the story would be radically different.

I fully expect ebooks at Amazon to outsell hardcovers ... particularly when new devices emerge that can handle Kindle books (iPad and the lower-priced Kindle reader).

So it's really a "well, duh" story ... and the only surprise is it didn't happen sooner.

Actually, given the unit numbers they provided, it seems they're selling fewer ebooks than I'd thought.

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by Mememememe

So it's really a "well, duh" story ... and the only surprise is it didn't happen sooner.

Well, personally I do not find it surprising it didn't happen sooner.

It looks suspiciously like a story Amazon quickly rushed out in order to steal some thunder from Apple's iPad.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Mememememe

The Amazon report doesn't mean all that much. Hardcover sales aren't a big part of their business, anyway. Such is the case with most booksellers, but it's particularly the case with Amazon, which has always been heavily paperback, almost to the point of exclusivity. Online retailers like Amazon and Indigo are terrible outlets for hardcover.

Oh, really?

Then why were the publishers so upset at Amazon's default $9.99 price for Kindle editions, threatened to withhold books from Amazon, and finally imposed the Agency model on pricing, requiring Amazon to charge a higher price and give the publisher a bigger cut?

The move was to protect the hardcover best seller. Those are the jewels of the industry. They generate the highest revenue, carry the highest margins, and make the most profit. Amazon was selling Kindle editions at the same time as the hardcover release, and enough people who wanted the book now chose the ebook edition at $9.99 over the hardcover's much higher price. The publishers were seeing the impact in terms of lower revenue, and reacted.

Amazon is the world's largest catalog retailer, and the largest book retailer. If they do a lot more business in paperbacks, that's simply because the industry as a whole is far more paperback than hardcover. Amazon sells a lot of hardcovers, thank you - enough that a consortium of publishers imposed a different model on them to protect revenues and profits from lower priced electronic editions.
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Dennis

[carld]

Originally Posted by kilohertz53

The question is, does every download of a Kindle freebie count as a "sale"? If so, that would really skew the data.

No, freebies aren't included in those totals. It's in the first bullet point of the press release.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Oh, really?

Then why were the publishers so upset at Amazon's default $9.99 price for Kindle editions, threatened to withhold books from Amazon, and finally imposed the Agency model on pricing, requiring Amazon to charge a higher price and give the publisher a bigger cut?

Just because Amazon selling cheap eBooks was cutting into hardback sales, doesn't mean they were cutting into hardback sales from Amazon

The move was to protect the hardcover best seller. Those are the jewels of the industry. They generate the highest revenue, carry the highest margins, and make the most profit. Amazon was selling Kindle editions at the same time as the hardcover release, and enough people who wanted the book now chose the ebook edition at $9.99 over the hardcover's much higher price. The publishers were seeing the impact in terms of lower revenue, and reacted.

Amazon is the world's largest catalog retailer, and the largest book retailer. If they do a lot more business in paperbacks, that's simply because the industry as a whole is far more paperback than hardcover. Amazon sells a lot of hardcovers, thank you - enough that a consortium of publishers imposed a different model on them to protect revenues and profits from lower priced electronic editions.

This doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Just because Amazon selling cheap eBooks was cutting into hardback sales, doesn't mean they were cutting into hardback sales from Amazon

They were cutting into hardcover best seller sales, which is why the publishers reacted.

Amazon is the world's largest catalog retailer, and the largest book retailer. A good chunk of any house's hardcover releases are bought through Amazon.

Amazon was releasing Kindle editions of best selling books at the same time as the hardcover, at their standard $9.99 price, which is about a third of the cost of a current hardcover. People capable of reading an electronic version were opting for the Kindle edition. Publishers were seeing drops in their revenue and profits.

This doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

No? What do you think it doesn't prove?
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Dennis