The Los Angeles Times and the New York Times are both reporting that Amazon is selling 80% more e-books than hardcover books. Jeff Bezos, CEO, says, “Astonishing when considering that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months.”
A couple of interesting things from the articles. Amazon says that the surge in e-books is likely due to the price cut of the Kindle device in early June. Since that time sales have tripled.
Does this mean Amazon will cut their prices even further? I personally think they will, and probably the only thing keeping them from doing so now is the fear of running out of devices. If you drop the price to $99, and then people have to wait 2 months to get them, they won’t be happy.
But I hope they are gearing up production and planning on dropping the price somewhere down the road. In fact, woot.com, which was recently acquired by Amazon, sold Kindles for $149 for a day. I wonder if that gave the company an idea of how many Kindles could be sold at a lower price.
The New York Times pointed out that Amazon has roughly 630,000 e-books, while they have millions of print books. So even though there are less e-books, it’s clear that people are making the shift.
Also interesting to note, sales of print books were up 22% this year. Maybe that’s a little of the open model at work? People finding digital books they like, then buying the print books?
Another interesting bit from the NY Times article:
“Some industry analysts say that many people do not consider the iPad to be a reading device the way the Kindle is, and see a need to own both. Amazon’s latest sales figures are “clearly an indication that the iPad is complementary to the Kindle, not a replacement.”
The only part I didn’t care for was the New York times throwing out rhetoric like, “Monday was a day for the history books — if those will even exist in the future.” and “Book lovers mourning the demise of hardcover books with their heft and their musty smell need a reality check”
Stage theater survived movie theaters; movie theaters survived television; radios survived CDs and mp3s; and we’ve still yet to see the ‘paperless office’. Just because e-books are becoming popular, doesn’t mean we need to start digging the grave for print book. It’s simply another way to enjoy storytelling, and quite frankly will provide new ways that print never did.
If you love print books, you have nothing to worry about. If you’re an writer or a reader of books, this news is good news.
Amazon.com says it’s selling 80% more downloaded books than hardcovers
“The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,” says Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive. A drastic cut in the price of the Kindle portable reader is probably a major factor.
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There’s more evidence that digital books are upending the publishing industry.
Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. says it is now selling 80% more downloaded books than hardbacks. Amazon’s download format is for its Kindle electronic reader as well as other devices.
“The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, in a statement.
“Astonishing when considering that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months.”
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