The Register's take on Kindle Sales

[Tom90deg]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Mobipocket (owned by Amazon as you likely know) has a deal with bookstores that sell .mobi books that they will not undercut their prices. If you want a .mobi book, you can go to other stores to buy them. If you want to buy a .mobi book through Amazon (mobipocket.com), be prepared to pay the highest price. If Amazon offered best sellers in .mobi for $9.99 I'm sure they'd find themselves in court pretty quickly.

Really? That seems...poorly planned. "Ok, look. We've got this new tech! It's amazeing. And the masterstroke? We'll legally agree to NOT sell it for cheaper than the established brand!" Is it just me or does that seem rather...stupid?

[Faenad]

I think that the high price point is the most important reason for weak ebook sales.
An Ebook cost almost nothing to distribute, can't be offered or resold after finishing it.
And yet they cost as much, sometimes more than a regular book (even without taking into account that you can easily buy paper book at a big discount in store, or in second hand shop).
Don't seem like a great deal for me, especially since I don't believe the actual author get more money for selling an ebook than a paper book (If anybody has some information about it it would be great to know how it works).

If the Ebooks prices would drop below the "impulse buying" point I think Amazon would have a lot more sales.
When I go in some kind of one-dollar shop I always end up spending much more money than I planned. I know for sure It would be the same for Ebooks if the prices were more reasonable. I would certainly spend more money than at the moment.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Tom90deg

Really? That seems...poorly planned. "Ok, look. We've got this new tech! It's amazeing. And the masterstroke? We'll legally agree to NOT sell it for cheaper than the established brand!" Is it just me or does that seem rather...stupid?

I don't think I made myself quite clear. Mobipocket created the .mobi format. They license it to other companies for publishing their books. They have a store where they also sell books but have a deal not to undercut other stores. The main revenue is from licensing the format and its DRM. Amazon bought them quite some time ago. Years pass. Amazon develops the Kindle. They make a "new" format that does not directly compete with Mobipocket to avoid violating this agreement. This allows them to undercut as much as they like with .azw books and gain market for the Kindle in the US. Mobipocket remains a thriving file format in the rest of the world where Kindles are not available.