

Amazon sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books last quarter - hexis
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/technology/20kindle.html

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acangiano
Before you dismiss this because it's limited to hardcover books, keep in mind
that, for general books, a hardcover version is often released before a
paperback one is made available. This means that many new hot books will only
be available as hardcover or Kindle editions. And the Kindle format is
winning.

This is a remarkable result and should be considered as a sign that we are
reaching a tipping point for ebooks, to phrase it in a Gladwell-esque way.

~~~
MJR
I don't think we're at a tipping point yet. Amazon sold Kindles to its most
regular book customers. We'll reach a tipping point when the general public
begins to purchase ebooks, but I don't think we're there yet.

We don't know how many of these purchases are to Amazon's best customers. I
would be very curious to see the purchases broken down by the number of
customers purchasing ebooks vs those purchasing paper books. And by quantity,
how many ebooks are purchased vs paper books per customer. Is this simply a
fact of frequent customers now buying ebooks, or many more customers now
buying ebooks.

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YooLi
Making the Kindle app available on a multitude of devices (Windows, Mac, iOS,
Android, etc.) was a very smart move by Amazon. If someone has a kindle now,
it is absolutely no problem for them to get an iPad or other device and
continue reading/purchasing books.

~~~
RexRollman
Yep, you can read it anywhere Amazon _allows_ you to read it.

~~~
sliverstorm
"Disallows" and "hasn't finished writing software for yet" are two different
beasts. Amazon wants you to be able to read your books wherever you want; the
more places you can read them, and the happier you are, the more ebooks they
sell.

~~~
ahk
How about on a Sony eReader touch? You're saying they have plans for that as
well?

~~~
sliverstorm
No more than they could possibly be having plans for the iTouch (and by
extension iPhone), which is billed as the answer to the Kindle.

Well, that's not true really. There's not a snowball's chance in hell Sony
would ever LET them distribute a reader app, no matter how much Amazon wanted
to.

~~~
ahk
Amazon doesn't need to distribute an app for the Sony reader touch. Just the
books themselves in epub format instead of their current kindle/mobipocket
format.

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parfe
I keep looking to make a kindle purchase of a newer book. The price floor of
$10 on a digital item has so far been hard to swallow. I've downloaded plenty
of out of copyright classics, but why buy the kindle edition for $10 when I
can get a gently used paperback for around $6 shipped with the ability to
resell it for anywhere between $4-$8 depending on supply?

~~~
xenophanes
Reselling paperbacks and getting a good price for them? What's your time
worth?

~~~
parfe
It isn't just my time. It's about making sure books get read. I can't throw a
book out so I figure I'll ship it off to someone else.

A box of padded envelopes and the post office is 100ft from where I eat lunch
nearly every day. It isn't so much of a hassle.

Not only that, but the kindle actually slows down my reading. Overall a
paperbook is less of a time commitment.

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redstripe
This is just for hardcovers - not paperbacks. Outside of textbooks, we have
very few hardcovers in our house.

~~~
fbcocq
Also, keeping in mind that online book sales account for only 15.5% of all
books sold (at least in Germany), it's not the end of the printed book by a
longshot.

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hapless
Germany's online booksellers have ridiculous prices. I don't know what the
marketshare figures look like in the rest of the world, but I would be very
surprised if they were comparable to Germany.

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RexRollman
I have a problem with the term "Sold" when it comes to Kindle books. Nobody
actually "buys" one, they license it.

DRM is toxic.

~~~
tghw
The Kindle DRM is pretty easy to strip off. Then you have a mobipocket ebook
that can be easily converted to epub, pdf, etc.

~~~
RexRollman
You not really advising me to break the law, are you?

~~~
tghw
I didn't advise you to do anything. I'm just stating a simple fact.

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hop
This means Apple, out of nowhere, could soon become the #1 or #2 book retailer
in the world by next year. Apple has sold 3M iPads, roughly the same as the
Kindle -
[http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/201...](http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2010/01/amazon_ceo_millions_of_kindles_sold.html)

There will probably be around 2:1 iPads to Kindles and Nooks by the end of the
year. They are doing what they did with music with books.

~~~
lallysingh
But also remember that many people don't own kindles, but buy books & use the
software on other devices -- quite often Apple devices.

~~~
hop
For now anyways. I doubt many people with iPads will buy Kindles in the future
and Apple's eReader will scale far beyond the kindle because it offers so much
more. It will be interesting to see what happens when the Android tablets roll
out.

~~~
elq
did you actually comprehend what lallysingh was saying?

I'll summarize - many people who are buying kindle books are not using amazon
hardware.

~~~
hop
A year from now there will be 2-3 times as many iPads in circulation as there
are Kindles. 2 years, way more. Most of these people obviously will not have
prior Kindle accounts and they will buy via iBooks rather than a third party
app. The size of the pie is increasing, Kindle's slice can't keep pace.

~~~
lallysingh
I have my doubts on people preferring iBooks. Amazon.com is a much better
place to shop, and as long as I have _any_ other type of machine, the kindle
books are more flexible for me.

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fierarul
And yet for all the books I wanted to buy last week paperbacks were cheaper
compared to Kindle books. So much for digital copies being easier to
manufacture and all that.

I only see myself buying Kindle books for something unavailable in paper form
or with a serious discount.

