Have you ever written a book review?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Amazon Sells More Kindle Books than Hardcovers.**

This came sooner than I was expecting, but I was expecting it.

We are seeing a real spike in e-sales over the past three months--very strong and broad. What is more interesting to me than the steady uptick in e-sales is that we are not experiencing a concurrent drop in print sales. Many people in the industry were sure a rise on one side of the ledger meant a drop on the other. I wasn't convinced, and the data thus far suggest solid or increased print sales might be a beneficiary of the e-sale future. One indicator is that our strongest seller in both categories (print and e-book) for the past two months is the same title. The future looks bright for those ahead of the tidal wave. And we are ahead of that wave and riding it nicely.

For those of you who noticed the asterisks in the main title, there is a small "however" in that shout line. Amazon didn't disclose how Kindle e-book sales compare to its entire bookstore sales. With most Kindle books priced at $9.99, those e-books are often less expensive than the same title in hardcover, especially for popular new releases. But less-expensive paperbacks make up the vast majority of Amazon's book sales.

Hmm.



Click here to read the full article in Money Magazine.

--tps

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Once upon a time, airplanes needed propellers to fly. Then came the Jet Age. Prop planes didn't disappear, but the jet soon dominated.

The printed and bound book will continue to fly, but the e-book has taken wing and there's no going back.

TMW Writer

J David Petruzzi said...

It's definitely happened sooner than I thought too. I've already noticed that a couple of my titles sell more in e-form than print.

Perhaps the reason that print sales haven't backed off substantially is because e-sales are bringing MORE customers to the table - folks that won't, or previously wouldn't, buy print books.

That's a good thing.