Waterstones is removing Kindles from stores

[soulfuldog]

Those who want an e-ink reader and want to keep upgrading every year or two is a niche market. The number of people who have an eink device and are happy to continue using it but will only upgrade as and when required is probably far higher.

This latter group will include some who are not avid readers, but then again, there are avid readers who are amongst those who are happy to read on tablets and/or phones (especially when you can buy half-decent tablets so cheaply nowadays) either exclusively or along with their eink device. Then of course there are those who don't want to read anything other than physical books.

So I don't see why anyone would be surprised that ereaders aren't selling quite so well, and the fact that Waterstones are no longer stocking Kindle's is barely even newsworthy since they probably never sold that many even when they first stocked them.

Unless they go down the route of DRM-free, single format ebooks, I don't see the ebook market ever overtaking traditional books anyway. The only thing that has changed in the last few years is that there aren't many new eink buyers for the market to attract, and while there are a lot more cheap ebooks available, they are indies, whereas the price of mass-market best sellers has been creeping up.

[Chi Cygni]

Interesting. I am in transition from eink to tablet as we speak. I used to swear by eink before. At the end of August I subscribed to paid library and had no choice as to read via app on a tablet. Suddenly it doesn't bother me anymore and I can read for hours. At night I put blue light filter and the screen becomes brown, yellow or neutral, depends on choice. Battery doesn't last but then again it is a 3 year old Chinese knock off tablet that was in my cupboard, hardly used. I even took it on the bus to work and could read fine. Recently I have been eyeing large screen phones like Moto Style X or Galaxy Note 4.

As to Waterstones they had Kindles here in Brussels but so overpriced that it was cheaper to order them directly from US. I don't think they have them anymore.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I personally have more problems with sleeping after reading from my lighted e-ink devices... You cannot tone down the brightness enough while still keeping enough contrast. My tablet, I have a black screen, with light gray lettering and the brightness to a minimum. Which leaves more than enough contrast to read, and emits less light than my e-ink screen does when I want to keep it readable.

Exactly. There is far less light reading my phone or tablet at night in bed than when I used to have a lamp on to read a real book. Being able to read in bed without disturbing my sleeping wife is just one of the many perks of reading on a phone/tablet for me.

[fjtorres]

Right now a lot of people seem to have forgotten that it is 2015 out there, not 2012 or even 2010.

eBook adoption is no longer tied to eink sales any more than it is tied to BPH ebook sales or even tradpub sales. The evolution of the industry is an ongoing process and the ebook world no longer looks or works anything like it did even two years ago. And where the media and most industry pundits are missing the boat is in the reliance of gross dollars spent by consumers as a metric.

All the stories about flat or declining ebook sales are based on a hidden assumption: that the average ebook price has remained steady. If that were the case, declining ebook grosses would mean declining ebook sales. But it doesn't. Not any more than declining eink sales mean decling ebook readership. In both cases what we are seeing is a change in behavior of consumers and since publishing is a business that has no significant understanding of consumer behavior they are yet again misreading the market.

Eink sales down?
Down from what level? 2011? Sure. Unavoidable.
2011-2012 is when the switch to near cost pricing dropped the price of eink readers by over 50%. Big price drops like that tend to not only draw in all the people who need or want the product but also a good number of people who *think* they might have a use for it (remember all the stories about eink readers languishing in drawers, unused?). They also draw in future shoppers, people who would've bought later (replacing their first gen readers, for example) but moved up their purchases to take advantage of the new pricing.
This shift created a bubble and bubbles invariably pop.
The biggest casualty of the 2011 sales rate was B&N; they looked at those sales and, thinking the party would continue, ordered up a zillion STRs and then failed to sell them. There's still supplies of new STRs floating around, three years later.

So yes, new eink reader sales are down.
But that says nothing about eink *usage*.
Because nobody knows for sure what the usable life cycle of the things is like. There's people still reading happily on first gen readers from 2008 so when we hear reports of x-amount of readers sold in 2014 nobody has a clue how many are replacements for broken or obsoleted readers and how many are new adopters. It could be that 10% of the lower number are new adopters and the rest replacement sales or it could be 90% new adopters.
And nobody knows which.
(Well, except for Amazon but as usual, they aren't talking.)

Likewise, nobody else knows how many people are reading *exclusively* on phones, tablets, or PCs. (And given the growth of convertible PCs that last number is non-trivial. Not that it ever was.)

So, bottom line, one pbook retailer stopping B&M sales of Kindles?
Yeah, it happened. So what?
It tells us nothing.
Maybe they weren't selling there because would-be buyers don't think of bookstores as a place to buy consumer electronics. Maybe they were selling well enough but they didn't think the commission they got was big enough. Maybe they were selling like hotcakes and the publishers suggested it wasn't wise.

In the end, there are no tea leaves to read here.
It happened, move on.

Want to know where the commercial ebook business is headed? Look elsewhere.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Why would someone go to bookstore to buy a Kindle, when they can order directly from Amazon.
.

Why not. I bought my paperwhite at best buy. Price was the same. I paid tax either way. No wait on shipping and if I got a flawed screen I could get a quick exchange.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Barty

Why not. I bought my paperwhite at best buy. Price was the same. I paid tax either way. No wait on shipping and if I got a flawed screen I could get a quick exchange.

I guess it depends on where you live. For me, it's easier to order it online and have it delivered, instead of going to a store after work and then find out it's not in stock... (been there, done that, highly annoying!) And the waiting time is about the same or even less (order now, get it delivered tomorrow or wait till Friday so I can go to the store).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by sparklemotion

I don't think pricing factors all that much into the loss of sales though. I just think the majority of people have little need for an e-ink reader.

I do think pricing factors into it very much. I think people are fed up of publishers trying to take advantage of them with ridiculous eBook prices. Agency pricing is not being tolerated. Sales are showing that people do not want these artificially inflated prices.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I do think pricing factors into it very much. I think people are fed up of publishers trying to take advantage of them with ridiculous eBook prices. Agency pricing is not being tolerated. Sales are showing that people do not want these artificially inflated prices.

I don't personally think that eBook prices are "ridiculous" at all. I typically spend between £3 and £4 on an eBook, compared with the £5-7 that I'd spend on a paperback. For something which gives me several hours entertainment, I'd consider it to be good value for money. I certainly don't agree with undervaluing the work of authors by selling books at prices that are far too low.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't personally think that eBook prices are "ridiculous" at all. I typically spend between £3 and £4 on an eBook, compared with the £5-7 that I'd spend on a paperback. For something which gives me several hours entertainment, I'd consider it to be good value for money. I certainly don't agree with undervaluing the work of authors by selling books at prices that are far too low.

Take a look at eBook prices from those BPHs that Amazon.com made a deal with to allow them to go back to agency. They prices are higher than they should be.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take a look at eBook prices from those BPHs that Amazon.com made a deal with to allow them to go back to agency. They prices are higher than they should be.

You mean they're higher than you think they should be. As I said in my previous message, I don't believe them to be unreasonable. Most books that I buy are published by BPHs.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Take a look at eBook prices from those BPHs that Amazon.com made a deal with to allow them to go back to agency. They prices are higher than they should be.

UK and US prices aren't necessarily the same though. I am in the UK and like HarryT I'm not finding ebook prices to be outrageous

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Yolina

UK and US prices aren't necessarily the same though. I am in the UK and like HarryT I'm not finding ebook prices to be outrageous

...I believe we've had this discussion before, and it's been shown that, although ebooks in the UK are generally cheaper than paper books, this is not true elsewhere.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

...I believe we've had this discussion before, and it's been shown that, although ebooks in the UK are generally cheaper than paper books, this is not true elsewhere.

Shari

Can you tell me what, for example, Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" costs in paperback and Kindle eBook on Amazon US? On Amazon UK, the eBook costs £3.99, and the paperback £5.99. ie, the eBook is two thirds the price of the paperback.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can you tell me what, for example, Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" costs in paperback and Kindle eBook on Amazon US? On Amazon UK, the eBook costs £3.99, and the paperback £5.99. ie, the eBook is two thirds the price of the paperback.

Kindle $5.99
School & Library Binding $14.96
Paperback $5.95
Mass Market Paperback $6.00

As you can see, the only version of the book that is really more expensive than the Kindle version is the "School & Library Binding".

Do you have any others you would like me to check?

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by shalym

Kindle $5.99
School & Library Binding $14.96
Paperback $5.95
Mass Market Paperback $6.00

As you can see, the only version of the book that is really more expensive than the Kindle version is the "School & Library Binding".

Do you have any others you would like me to check?

Shari

Thanks for that. So it's not that the eBook is more expensive in the US than the UK, but rather that the paperback is drastically cheaper in the US than in the UK. Paperbacks have always cost a lot more in the UK than the US, which is perhaps one reason for the success of ebooks here.