|
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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:
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.
I’ve been keeping track of the number of books that is available to every country with the intent of publishing the delta like the previous one. However in the last couple of days updates were so many that it doesn’t make sense to highlight any country in particular. Pretty much every since one has gotten 10..80K extra books between the announcement of international Kindle release and the actual ship date which is today. The few countries that didn’t see any change were the ones who started with high book counts to begin with (more than 280,000).
After the release of international Kindle was announced, several people have complained that many interesting books were not available to their non-US Amazon accounts. Hopefully these changes should at least partially solve this problem.
If you have previously tried to buy a Kindle book and couldn’t because of geographical restrictions, you try it now and drop a comment here whether it worked on not.
| Country |
Ship date |
Announce date |
Change |
| Aland Islands |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Albania |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| American Samoa |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Andorra |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Angola |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Anguilla |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Antigua and Barbuda |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Armenia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Aruba |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Australia |
280,000 |
280,000 |
- |
| Austria |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Bahamas |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Barbados |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Belarus |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Belgium |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Belize |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Benin |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Bermuda |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Bhutan |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Bolivia |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Botswana |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Brazil |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Bulgaria |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Burundi |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Cambodia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Cape Verde |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Cayman Islands |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Central African Republic |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Colombia |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Congo |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Cook Islands |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Costa Rica |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Cote d’Ivoire |
240,000 |
170,000 |
70,000 |
| Croatia |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Cyprus |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Czech Republic |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Denmark |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Dominica |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Dominican Republic |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Ecuador |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| El Salvador |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Equatorial Guinea |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Estonia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Ethiopia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Falkland Islands |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Faroe Islands |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Federated States of Micronesia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Fiji |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Finland |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| France |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| French Guiana |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| French Polynesia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Gabon |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Georgia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Germany |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Ghana |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Gibraltar |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Greece |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Greenland |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Grenada |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Guadeloupe |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Guam |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Guatemala |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Guernsey |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Guinea-Bissau |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Guyana |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Haiti |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Holy See |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Honduras |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Hong Kong |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Hungary |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Iceland |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| India |
280,000 |
270,000 |
10,000 |
| Ireland |
280,000 |
280,000 |
- |
| Italy |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Jamaica |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Japan |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Jersey |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Kenya |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Kiribati |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Lao People’s Democratic Republic |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Latvia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Lesotho |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Liberia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Liechtenstein |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Lithuania |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Luxembourg |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Macao |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Macedonia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Madagascar |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Malawi |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Malta |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Marshall Islands |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Martinique |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Mauritius |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Mayotte |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Mexico |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Moldova |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Monaco |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Mongolia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Montenegro |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Montserrat |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Mozambique |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Myanmar |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Namibia |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Nauru |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Nepal |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Netherlands |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Netherlands Antilles |
300,000 |
280,000 |
20,000 |
| New Caledonia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Nicaragua |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Niue |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Norfolk Island |
240,000 |
170,000 |
70,000 |
| Northern Mariana Islands |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Norway |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Palau |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Panama |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Papua New Guinea |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Paraguay |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Peru |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Philippines |
290,000 |
290,000 |
- |
| Poland |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Portugal |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Puerto Rico |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Reunion |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Romania |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Russia |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Rwanda |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Saint Kitts and Nevis |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Saint Lucia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Saint Vincent and the Grenadines |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Samoa |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| San Marino |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Sao Tome and Principe |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Serbia |
240,000 |
170,000 |
70,000 |
| Seychelles |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Slovakia |
240,000 |
170,000 |
70,000 |
| Slovenia |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Solomon Islands |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| South Africa |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Spain |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Sri Lanka |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Suriname |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Swaziland |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Sweden |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Switzerland |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Taiwan |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Tanzania |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Timor-Leste |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Togo |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Tonga |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Trinidad and Tobago |
300,000 |
290,000 |
10,000 |
| Turks and Caicos Islands |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Tuvalu |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Uganda |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Ukraine |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| United Kingdom |
280,000 |
280,000 |
- |
| Uruguay |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Vanuatu |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Venezuela |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Viet Nam |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Virgin Islands, British |
290,000 |
280,000 |
10,000 |
| Virgin Islands, U.S. |
260,000 |
180,000 |
80,000 |
| Wallis and Futuna |
250,000 |
170,000 |
80,000 |
| Zambia |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
| Zimbabwe |
240,000 |
160,000 |
80,000 |
….
 Since I published the Kindle International Coverage table it already became outdated as Amazon has made roughly 10,000 books available to several countries. I have updated and table now. I’ll make another check on the 19th when Kindle 2 international ships and then I’ll post updates on a weekly basis.
Here is the summary of changes:
- Bolivia from 180,000 to 190,000
- Botswana from 170,000 to 180,000
- Bouvet Island from 170,000 to 180,000
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands from 170,000 to 180,000
- Ecuador from 180,000 to 190,000
- El Salvador from 180,000 to 190,000
- French Guiana from 180,000 to 190,000
- Greenland from 180,000 to 190,000
- Guatemala from 180,000 to 190,000
- Haiti from 180,000 to 190,000
- Honduras from 180,000 to 190,000
- Jamaica from 290,000 to 300,000
- Mayotte from 170,000 to 180,000
- New Caledonia from 170,000 to 180,000
- Nicaragua from 180,000 to 190,000
- Northern Mariana Islands from 180,000 to 190,000
- Palau from 170,000 to 180,000
- Panama from 180,000 to 190,000
- Papua New Guinea from 170,000 to 180,000
- Paraguay from 180,000 to 190,000
- Reunion from 170,000 to 180,000
- Suriname from 180,000 to 190,000
- Trinidad and Tobago from 290,000 to 300,000
- Uruguay from 180,000 to 190,000
- Venezuela from 180,000 to 190,000
- Wallis and Futuna from 170,000 to 180,000
When Kindle International was originally annouced several many people complained that book selection that is available outside of the US is inferior to what is available to American customers. I guess Amazon is well aware of the problem and are working on negotiating more deals with local and international publishers to expand the eBook selection.
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:
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:
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:
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
| Category |
9-May |
9-Jun
|
Change
|
| Advice & How-to |
20,939 |
22,223 |
1,284 |
| Arts & Entertainment |
9,505 |
12,935 |
3,430 |
| Biographies & Memoirs |
11,210 |
12,071 |
861 |
| Business & Investing |
26,512 |
27,590 |
1,078 |
| Children’s Chapter Books |
10,354 |
11,704 |
1,350 |
| Computers & Internet |
13,285 |
13,749 |
464 |
| Cooking, Food & Wine |
3,050 |
3,288 |
238 |
| Fantasy |
5,058 |
5,359 |
301 |
| Fiction |
116,551 |
118,788 |
2,237 |
| General |
1,858 |
1,919 |
61 |
| History |
20,957 |
22,417 |
1,460 |
| Humor |
5,865 |
6,473 |
608 |
| Lifestyle & Home |
14,094 |
15,137 |
1,043 |
| Literary Fiction |
9,213 |
10,198 |
985 |
| Mystery & Thrillers |
13,022 |
13,909 |
887 |
| Nonfiction |
176,142 |
187,781 |
11,639 |
| Parenting & Families |
5,807 |
6,217 |
410 |
| Politics & Current Events |
11,478 |
11,797 |
319 |
| Reference |
10,147 |
10,655 |
508 |
| Religion & Spirituality |
24,609 |
26,218 |
1,609 |
| Romance |
16,105 |
17,139 |
1,034 |
| Science |
36,497 |
37,332 |
835 |
| Science Fiction |
6,984 |
7,474 |
490 |
| Sports |
3,992 |
4,259 |
267 |
| Travel |
3,475 |
3,876 |
401 |
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
| Category |
May-09 |
Jun-09
|
Change
|
| Arts & Entertainment |
1,295 |
1,480 |
185 |
| Business & Investing |
952 |
1,061 |
109 |
| Humor & Satire |
492 |
574 |
82 |
| Industry Focus |
777 |
849 |
72 |
| Internet & Technology |
1,718 |
1,889 |
171 |
| Lifestyle & Culture |
1,925 |
2,216 |
291 |
| News, Politics & Opinion |
1,132 |
1,283 |
151 |
| Regional & Travel |
378 |
426 |
48 |
| Science |
326 |
362 |
36 |
| Sports |
565 |
610 |
45 |
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:
| Category |
May-09 |
Jun-09
|
Change
|
| Arts & Entertainment |
1,295 |
1,480 |
185 |
| Business & Investing |
952 |
1,061 |
109 |
| Humor & Satire |
492 |
574 |
82 |
| Industry Focus |
777 |
849 |
72 |
| Internet & Technology |
1,718 |
1,889 |
171 |
| Lifestyle & Culture |
1,925 |
2,216 |
291 |
| News, Politics & Opinion |
1,132 |
1,283 |
151 |
| Regional & Travel |
378 |
426 |
48 |
| Science |
326 |
362 |
36 |
| Sports |
565 |
610 |
45 |
I just noticed that as of 5th of June, 2009 Kindle store surpassed 300,000 books. I was about to brag about how close my prediction was when I noticed that I made a typo when I was typing that post one month ago. I meant to write 13th of June but from July. Seriously…
Anyway, this is 8 days ahead of my mistyped prediction…
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
| Category |
Apr-09 |
May-09 |
Change |
| Advice & How-to |
19,393 |
20,939 |
1,546 |
| Arts & Entertainment |
8,749 |
9,505 |
756 |
| Biographies & Memoirs |
9,833 |
11,210 |
1,377 |
| Business & Investing |
24,938 |
26,512 |
1,574 |
| Children’s Chapter Books |
9,191 |
10,354 |
1,163 |
| Computers & Internet |
12,710 |
13,285 |
575 |
| Cooking, Food & Wine |
-
|
3,050 |
3,050 |
| Fantasy |
4,618 |
5,058 |
440 |
| Fiction |
108,465 |
116,551 |
8,086 |
| General |
1,752 |
1,858 |
106 |
| History |
19,297 |
20,957 |
1,660 |
| Humor |
4,673 |
5,865 |
1,192 |
| Lifestyle & Home |
12,871 |
14,094 |
1,223 |
| Literary Fiction |
8,133 |
9,213 |
1,080 |
| Mystery & Thrillers |
12,231 |
13,022 |
791 |
| Nonfiction |
165,236 |
176,142 |
10,906 |
| Parenting & Families |
5,322 |
5,807 |
485 |
| Politics & Current Events |
11,187 |
11,478 |
291 |
| Reference |
9,557 |
10,147 |
590 |
| Religion & Spirituality |
22,608 |
24,609 |
2,001 |
| Romance |
15,078 |
16,105 |
1,027 |
| Science |
35,746 |
36,497 |
751 |
| Science Fiction |
6,570 |
6,984 |
414 |
| Sports |
3,587 |
3,992 |
405 |
| Travel |
3,124 |
3,475 |
351 |
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
| Category |
Count |
| Arts & Entertainment |
1,295 |
| Business & Investing |
952 |
| Humor & Satire |
492 |
| Industry Focus |
777 |
| Internet & Technology |
1,718 |
| Lifestyle & Culture |
1,925 |
| News, Politics & Opinion |
1,132 |
| Regional & Travel |
378 |
| Science |
326 |
| Sports |
565 |
Here’s brief recoup of the blog for the previous month:
“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 :)
I’ve been counting books in Kindle Store on a daily basis and now the time to share results:
- When I first started counting on the 2nd of March 2009 there were 242,488 books in the Kindle Store.
- As of the 12th of May 2009 there are 281,986. 39,498 books in 71 days.
- So on an average day 556 new books are added to the vast collection already available to Kindle owners.
- If the pace remains constant there will be 411,606 books in the Kindle Store by the end of the year.
- Target of 300,000 books is estimated to be hit on the 13th of July June, 2009
- Target of 400,000 books is estimated to be hit on the 10th of December, 2009
Lets wait and see how accurate these predictions will be. So far as you can see from the chart below the pace has been quite constant
If you are interested in what kind of books are these take a look at the next chart (click to zoom in)
If you add up the numbers you’ll notice that the sum is more than 281k. This is because there usually one book belongs to more than one category.
I’ll make a habit of posting these statistics every month.
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