Today I decided to take a break from Kindle 3 Reviews and do something I didn’t do for a long time – crunch some dry Amazon Kindle Store numbers.

I’ve been tracking number of amazon.com books and blogs for Kindle since March 2009. Previously I published these numbers on a monthly basis. With Kindle 3 released and getting great reviews it’s time I did so again.

Amazon.com Books for Kindle Count

There were 242,488 Kindle books when I started keeping track back in March 2009. Since then this number almost tripled to become 685,380. By looking at the graph you can see that apart from bump here and there the number of Kindle books still grows in a linear fashion. Largest spike to date (roughly 70K books) was in May 2010.

Amazon.com books by Genre

As you can see the majority of growth happened in non-fiction and history genres. Now lets dig deeper into smaller categories.

Amazon.com Book For Kindle By Genre

If you look at this graph carefully you will see that back in 2009 “Comics & Graphic Novels” and “Cooking, Food & Wine” categories didn’t exist at all. They first appeared in October 2009 and May 2009 respectively.

Amazon.com Blogs For Kindle Count

Number of blogs more than doubled since I started keeping track and just crossed 10,000 mark several days ago. Although you can only subscribe to blogs that published themselves on Amazon Marketplace, you can still read the rest in the browser. Although this is not as convenient.

Amazon.com Blogs For Kindle By Category

As you can see, most of the growth can be attributed to “Lifestyle & Culture” category.

So effectively the amount of content available for Kindle more than doubled over last 18 months. Impressive, isn’t it? But if we look past raw numbers, the picture can definitely be better. eBook industry right now is where digital music industry was years ago. Publishers are still wary of the new technology and sometimes don’t want to deal with it. While Amazon as a store works hard to get the most bang for the buck by signing on books from bestseller lists (and I have to admit they do a good job at it too) many great by not so currently popular books stay overboard.

Try searching for Robert Heinlein books on Kindle for example. You’ll find only six. But don’t rush to trade your Kindle in for Nook, Sony eReader or even iPad – you will find exactly the same selection there – I’ve checked. However if you head over to pretty much any torrent tracker you will find full Heinlein bibliography floating around in zipped PDF files. So while publishers cling to their old business models or argue who is going to charge whom and how much, books are being pirated because there is absolutely no way to get these and other works of literature in digital form. Hopefully it will get better just as it did with music industry.

I’ll wrap up with the usual daily Kindle 3 checkup. There are 264 (up 44 from yesterday) Kindle 3 reviews so far on amazon.com with the following breakdown: 179 – 5 positive star, 42 – 4 star, 10 – 3 star, 10 – 2 star, 23 – 1 negative star. Kindle 3 is still backordered until September 17th.

If you recall, there was a massive drop in book numbers in the last day of September. Well during the first week of October these books came back. So if we disregard this anomaly and consider 357,724 to be the final count for September, then with the final count for October being 368,373 we get an average of 343 books per day added. Otherwise if we take 372,556 to be the initial count then average increase would be 835.

Kindle Book Count for October 2009

The number of Kindle blogs increased from 7,179 to 7,355 (+176) giving us 5.7 new blogs per day on average. Notice weekly sharp drops. It looks like Amazon is either reviewing blogs on a weekly basis or they are just pruning out stale/dead blogs periodically. If you know of a blog that was on Kindle and no longer is – please let me know. This blog is still there – alive and well.

Kindle Blog Count for October 2009

As for events, there were several major Kindle related themes in October 2009:

• The biggest of all without a doubt is the international release of Amazon Kindle and everything related to it.
• Then there were geographical restrictions that went into effect before international Kindle was unveiled.
• Kindle for PC application was announced on the day Windows 7 was launched.
• Amazon started selling refurbished Kindle DX for $399.00

I’ve been quite busy with different things during the month of November so I didn’t blog as much. I know it’s almost time to be writing November summary, but better late than never.

There were some oddities with Kindle content count in the month of September. Just look at these graphs below…

Kindle book count was steadily increasing at 280 books per day for the entire month and Kindle store was about to post a gain of 8K+ books for the month when on the last day there was a sudden drop of 15,245 books. So final monthly delta ended up being -7,131 books with average loss of 238 books per day. I’ve checked today and the numbers are still way down, so it wasn’t a one day thing. So the final count is 342,479. This is about as many books as there were in the beginning of August.

Kindle Book Count for September 2009

Similar sharp drop happened in Kindle Blogs on the 5th of September. 222 blogs were eliminated from the marketplace. If we disregard this drop, number of blogs was increasing at around 10 new blogs per day which is still fewer than August gains. However with this drop factored the number of blogs increased by only 8. By the way, BlogKindle is still there on the marketplace and you can subscribe to it using your Kindle.

Kindle Blog Count for September 2009

Perhaps Amazon decided to do some house cleaning and eliminate low quality and duplicate content. Perhaps they have made the admission rules more strict. This seems to contrast with Sony/Google strategy of piling in as much public domain content (which is mainly low quality or outdated) to impress customers with raw book numbers.

And finally, here’s a recoup of what happened in the month of September:

• 3rd of September: Kindle 2.0.4 and Kindle DX 2.1.1 software is released but it takes some time for these updates to actually get to the customers. For example my Kindle DX is still at software version 2.1…
• 4th of September: Hacked Kindle running Ubuntu is demonstrated. Kudos to Jesse.
• 5th of September: Saga about deletion of 1984 by Amazon has found closure.
• 10th of September: I’ve purchased Sony PRS-505 for my Dad and posted a mini-comparison of Sony PRS-505 vs. Kindle 2.
• 15th of September: Some rumors have leaked about Time Inc. eReader possible in the future.
• 17th of September: Probably the biggest Kindle news of the month: price drop on refurbished Kindles. $149 for first generation Kindle and $219 for Kindle 2.
• 19th of September: Kindle version of The Lost Symbol is outselling the hardcover on Amazon.
• 22nd of September: Amazon launches AmazonBasics.
• 23rd of September: I’ve posted a summary of what other reviewers are saying on Sony Reader Touch/Pocket vs. Kindle. My own Sony Reader Touch edition is on the way so you can expect a hands on review soon.
• 24th of September: techflash.com posted a great picture that shows all connections and entanglements between different companies related to eBook industry.
• 25th of September: …and this picture becomes outdated on the very next day as Verizon enters the arena as 3G provider for iRex.
• 27th of September: BestBuy will Sell Sony and iRex eReaders. This looks like a serious threat to Amazon that continues to ignore retail channels other than their own website. It really baffles me why are they doing it. I still think that selling Kindles in airports will make a killing.
• 29th of September: inductive charging comes to Kindle. Though it is still not as good as it can be.
• 30th of September: Microsoft unveils their Tablet PC.

It’s time to publish previous month stats and summaries again.

Kindle book count had several ups and downs during the month of August, finally settling at 349,610 (just 390 books shy of 350K) for an overall increase of 13,713 that translates to 442 books per day on average. This is 3 times lower than previous month gain, in fact this is the slowest growth I’ve observed since I’ve started counting Kindle books this year. I hope Amazon will pick up it’s pace or my book count predictions might be off. If I were to speculate, I would guess that Amazon is periodically prunning self-published books to avoid incidents similar to the one with Orwell books.

Kindle Book Count August 2009

Kindle blogs, on the other hand, saw a healthy increase of 807 (almost twice as many as in July) ending at 7,171. This is 26 new blogs per day on average. Although if you look at the chart you can see that majority of the blogs were added on the 12th. If I were to speculate again I would guess that Amazon was holding off on approving blogs until they’ve internally decided on some kind of policy. Either that ot they’ve struck some kind of wholesale deal with some blog mogul.

Kindle Blog Count August 2009

And now a brief recoup of August 2009 Kindle news:

• August 2nd: Deletion of Orwell books lead to a lawsuit.
• August 3rd: Barnes and Noble made their eReader software available for download.
• August 5th: New Sony eReaders were announced.
• August 7th: After being sold out for nearly a month, Kindle DX is back in stock.
• August 8th: Rupert Murdoch, being dissatisfied with publishing deal with Amazon threatened to pull WJS and The Times from Kindle.
• August 9th: A poll I conducted showed that many Kindle users are interested in Kindle downloader application. However I’m still waiting for final OK from Amazon on this matter.
• August 13th: New iRex eReader was announced.
• August 21st: Some interesting data about Kindle-related carbon emmissions and lack thereof.
• August 22nd: eBook Text Formatter is published. It makes downloading books from web-sites such as lib.ru easier. It also works with Sony PRS eReaders.
• August 27th: Someone was able to mod Kindle to replace CDMA modem with GSM so it can be used in Europe. However software mod needed to make this happen is still in the works.
• August 28th: iRex Barnes and Noble integration announced.
• August 30th: Asus announced plans to release it’s own Asus eReader.

It took me a bit longer than usual to come up with the summary but here goes…

Kindle book count increased 41,016 (13.8%) in the month of July with final count being 335,897. Notice odd fluctuations between the 9th and 14th. Perhaps some publisher couldn’t make up their mind… Besides that book growth was linear at about 1,300 books per day.

Kindle Book Count July 2009

As for Kindle blogs, there were 445 (7.5%) new blogs in July with final count being 6,364. It looks like bloggers are loosing interest in Amazon Kindle as publishing blog platform. The growth was linear with a rate of 14 new blogs per day. As for BlogKindle.com, it more than doubled its number of Kindle subscribers.

Kindle Blog Count July 2009

Since there were no major changes in subject disstibution compared to June 2009, I’m going to skip these charts this month.

Here’s a scoop of what happened in July 2009:

• Kindle 2 price drop was probably the most important event in Kindle ecosystem last month. The fact that Amazon now sells eBook reader for under $300 is a big deal for many customers who were sitting on the fence.
• A very close runner up would the the story about Amazon remotely deleting books from customer’s devices due to the fact that it was self-published on Amazon illegally and developements that followed including possible class-action law suit.
• Speaking of  law suits… Amazon agreed to replace Kindles damaged by leather covers as a result of law suit. Arizona state university was being sued for intentions to use Kindle in educational process because of accessibility issues.
• An interesting hack was released for Kindle DX that allows direct PDF download to the device.
• There were a lot of news related to Kindle competition. Many players are entering the market including: COOL-ER eReader, weFound, Barnes & Noble along with PlasticLogic, Samsung and Google.
• However Amazon doesn’t sit idly either. Kindle is getting adopted by such companies as MicroStrategy and BlackBoard. Kindle and eReaders in general are being recognized as increasing influence by USA Today and Credit Suisse. There are also plans to expand Amazon Kindle Store to new devices.
• There were also some news about upcoming UK release of Kindle. It will be interesting to see how it will play out. I’m currently in the UK and while I was reading Kindle in public places here not once was I asked about the device contrasting with US where I get asked about what is that device that I use for reading quite often. Perhaps it has something to do with British people not talking to strangers without being properly introduced :)

There were 294,881 books at the end of May 2009 and 312,591 books at the end of June 2009. So 17,710 books were added to Kindle Book Store during June. This is slightly more than 6%. On average 590 books were added per day. This is less than average of 641 books per day during the month of May.

Kindle Book Count June 2009

Here’s breakdown by categories:

Kindle Book Categories June 2009

There were 5,368 blogs to begin with and 5,919 at the end of June. This corresponds to +10% or 18 new blogs on average per day. It’s not as impressive as +286% in the previous month when Kindle Blog publishing became available to everyone but still it is a nice number.

Kindle Blog Count June 2009

Here’s breakdown by categories:

Kindle Blog Categories June 2009

In the month of June BlogKindle.com truly lived up to it’s tagline of “daily news about Kindle, eBooks, eInk and other related topics”. There was a post every day and I hope that you’ve enjoyed most of them. Here’s a brief summary:

• June 1st – Amazon announced Kindle DX release date.
• June 2nd – Google announced its intentions to open digital book store by the end of 2009.
• June 5th – scratched my Kindle 2 :(
• June 5th – Kindle store hits 300k books.
• June 7th and 27th – Kindle used by libraries more and more.
• June 10th – Kindle DX ships.
• June 11th – California governor announces digital textbook initiative for high schools.
• June 11th – my first Kindle DX review.
• June 13th – I accidentally stumble over calculator easter egg in Kindle DX.
• June 14th – PDF support in Kindle DX reviewed.
• June 15th – Kindle DX dissected.
• June 18th – Kindle DX compared to Kindle 2.
• June 21th – unicode hack now works for Kindle DX.
• June 22nd – screensaver hack ported to Kindle DX.
• June 30th – both my Kindles survive airplane trip this time.
• June 30th – after 20 days of sales Kindle DX is sold out.

During May 19,885 new books were added to the Kindle Store with 294,881 books at the end of the month. This corresponds to 7.23% growth.

Kindle Book Count May 2009

Here is break down by categories:

Kindle Book Categories, May 2009

While I didn’t track number of blogs initially, at the end of the month it was 5,368. Up almost 4k from estimated initial count of 1,4k +286%

Kindle Blog Count, May 2009

Here is break down by categories:

Kindle Blog Categories, May 2009

Here’s brief recoup of the blog for the previous month:

• May 6th – Kindle DX is announced and Amazon starts taking pre-orders…
• May 15th – Wooden Kindle replica is constructed by folks at “Incredible Stuff I Made” and then burned…
• May 18th – BlogKindle.com is published on Kindle store for $1.99/month, on May 26th the price is decreased to $0.99/month.
• May 20th – Kindle for iPhone is updated with new features taking advantage of multi-touch and accelerometer.
• May 21st – BlogKindle.com undergoes a major redesign.
• May 22nd – Amazon sues Discovery Communications.
• May 26th – Kindle Economics category is opened with the first post being about wireless data pricing for Amazon and Kindle subscribers.
• May 27th – Amazon makes Kindle notes and highlights available for viewing online. However this feature needs much improvement before it becomes useful.
• May 28th – Plastic Logic demoed their eReader on All Things D.
• May 29th – Kindle DX release date contest was launched and BlogKindle starts tweeting.
• May 31st – Pixel Qi demonstrates hybrid reflective/backlit display.

“Good Kindle Books at a Glance” covered Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert,  H.G. Wells and Douglas Adams…

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it :)