The Kindle edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol seems to be outselling the Hardcover edition of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as was first discovered by Kindle Nation Daily. At the time I’m writing this, the Kindle version is still ahead on Amazon’s sales charts.
The main thing to take away from this is the growing power of the Kindle and other eReaders. Having the Kindle sales best the physical sales is the latest step in publishing’s gradual move towards digital media. If more books follow suit, and the gap between digital and hardcover sales widen, digital versions will slowly begin to take precedence over printed ones. I’m going to guess that hardcovers will be the first victims of eBooks, eventually being limited to small, collector-oriented runs.
Of course, the Kindle edition’s success needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Amazon sales charts are updated frequently, so whoever hasn’t necessarily sold more copies overall. In this case, preorders for the hardcover started earlier than preorders for the eBook, somewhat skewing the results. I’m not saying that this means the Kindle version didn’t sell more, but it is something to consider. Also, hardcovers never sell anything close to paperback numbers, which may be much higher than the Kindle sales once they become widely available.
But, at least for now, the Kindle is dominating in the Amazon book store.
Another interesting thing about The Lost Symbol is that it has been made widely available by pirates in ePub and PDF forms. But this didn’t stop the eBook version from outselling the hardcover. This proves my point that people would follow the path of the least resistance. In the case of Kindle buying is easier than stealing so they buy. Back in the time of Audiogalaxy.com it was far easier to download the newly released album (without leaving your home) several days before it hit the stores (that you have to visit in person or wait for several more days before it’s delivered) so people pirated like crazy. Therefore the ease of purchase that is central to Amazon Kindle is the strongest form of DRM.
It seems like the USA Today has decided to include Kindle book sales in their best seller lists. This move demonstrates just how significant the Kindle is becoming in the publishing world. Sales on the Kindle store have grown to such a large number that they’ve come to be considered just as signifcant as traditional sales.
This move is also a great way for the USA Today to increase the influence of its best seller list. For most people, best selling books is synonymous with with the New York Times Best Seller List. The New York Times list the one recognized by Amazon (where Best Sellers are discounted) and most other retailers. Not to mention the fact that you usually don’t see advertisers quoting a book’s position on the USA Today Best Seller List. But by adding Kindle sales, the USA Today is trying to anticipate current trends and make headway against the Times list. So far, the USA Today is the only publication to have done this, which might mean that their list will be more accurate.
Unless of course The New York Times already counts Kindle sales. The data used to compile their list is a trade secret, so its possible they already include electronic sales and just haven’t told anybody.
I meant to publish this post yesterday but got carried away by other business. First of all – kudos to Amazon for timely shipment and large supply. I don’t think that anyone who ordered Kindle 2 was left without one. Sony should take the time to learn from this good example. A friend of mine was sitting on the fence until the last day and finally placed his order at 3PM pacific time on the 23rd and he received his Kindle about the same time I did – around 3PM pacific time on the 24th. I checked the Amazon website and looks as of today (February 25th there is no backlog) – you can still order and get it on the next day (or later if you want to save on shipping).
Here it is…
First impressions are really good. Amazon Kindle was a good thing to begin with and they didn’t do anything wrong in the second version. In fact I wouldn’t call it v2 (nor does Amazon say so anywhere on the device itself) – it’s a nice evolutionary development of well engineered device:
Photos and pictures look better with 16 shades of gray rather than 4
5-way button is a bit more convenient than scroller (but that’s just my opinion)
The geek in me misses the SD card slot as it (the geek) would like to eventually stuff entire library of congress in the device but the rational part of me realizes that 1.4GB is quite enough given that device is almost always online.
These are just my first impressions. I’ll keep using Kindle 2 and will post on my impressions again in 2 weeks, than in 1 month, then in 3. Of course I’ll post about other related topics much more often… Stay tuned.
With Amazon Kindle 2 shipping in just a few days there is a lot of related activing on the internet auction eBay going on. There are Kindle 2s that actually already sell for $400+. Some people who have confirmed shipping resell their Kindle 2s for profit in hopes that Amazon will not be able to satisfy the demand during the launch. Something like that actually happened with Sony PRS-505 was released. Supply was much lower than demand and for months after the official launch it sold on eBay for double it’s retail price…
I don’t think that this will be the case for Kindle 2 but I’ll still keep track of the prices with this widget out of pure curiosity.
Either way there are also many Kindle V1s sold there by the owners who are upgrading. So if you wanted to buy Amazon Kindle at great discount eBay would be a great place to do it now. If you want to get some extra cash for Kindle 2 upgrade, selling V1 on eBay would be a way to go. Just remember to de-register the device first.
Update: since flash widget would keep displaying wrong items – here is a manual update from me:
Kindle 2 prices dropped to the official retail price of ~360 USD. There is no underproduction as was the case with the Sony reader. This is confirmed by a friend of mine who ordered Kindle 2 around 3PM PST on the February 23rd, 2009 and he’s on track to receive it on the next day. He didn’t have Kindle 1 so he didn’t get priority shipping (nor he needed one)
On the other hand there is predictably increasing number of Kindle 1s that steadily sell for around 270 USD as people are upgrading. Some are never opened. So if you were looking for that $100 off kindle coupon – here is your chance :) I’ve bought and sold 100+ items on eBay and never had any problems.
Update 2: it looks like some would be enterpreneurs are trying to cut their losses and there are some Kindle 2s selling below Amazon prices. Another discount opportunity.
I guess the figures had to come out sooner or later.
240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November 2007, according to TechCrunch, that’s what their source claims. We know that Amazon always stays coy about sales as part of its company policy so we may never get any conformation from Amazon about this.
TechCrunch says that their source is close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers, possibly the same source that claimed Kindle v2 is on it’s way this fall — we’ve yet to see any evidence of that prediction.
TechCrunch goes on to say;
Doing a little back of the envelope math, that brings total sales of the device so far to between $86 million and $96 million (the price of the device was reduced to $360 from $400 last May). Then add the amounts spent on digital books, newspapers, and blogs purchased to read on the device, and you get a business that has easily brought in above $100 million so far. (Each $25 worth of digital reading material purchased per Kindle, add $6 million in total revenues).
From these numbers is appears that Kindle is already a profitable operation and has been so from the beginning, however, what we don’t know is whether after research and development costs have been factored in if the Kindle project overall is in profitability.
Wall Street has also came out with some new estimates;
Scott Devitt, an analyst at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., predicts that Amazon is on track to sell 500,000 to 750,000 more Kindles over the next four quarters (including this one). He estimates that Kindle owners will buy an additional $120 to $150 worth of books and other content for each device, bringing the total revenues over that time period to somewhere between $225 million and $355 million. Based on that, he values the Kindle as a $1 billion business for Amazon.
So by this time next year there could possible be over a million Kindle’s sold by Amazon. In May, Citi analyst Mark Mahaney was estimating that total sales of Kindle’s this year would only reach 189,000. The image below shows what he thought would happen. Turns out that his numbers were way off, that’s analysts for you! Its time for him to significantly revise his estimate.
240,000 Kindle’s shipped, would you call it a success? It certainly has proved the nay-sayers wrong, it’s proved Wall Street wrong as-well.
If the numbers are to be believed, then its a wonderful start for the Kindle, the revenue from hardware sales alone is an estimated $100 million. When you begin to add on book sales, Amazon looks like its earning some major money for its shareholders.
Rampage is literally the word to use in this instance. A Time magazine article last week said;
“on a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles.”
“Title-by-title basis…Kindle unit sales more than 6% of total book sales”
Incredible! A doubling of sales in the publishing industry is unheard of! in two months Amazon has managed doubled sales with a device which many critics claimed was not ready for prime time. The supply problems and pessimistic early reviews haven’t dented growth at all.
Which begs the question, have Kindle users started to purchase more e-books? and is that because e-books are significantly cheaper than their printed counterparts? or has Amazon been selling a stack load of Kindle’s, far more than previously thought.
Time magazine has a theory;
A couple of things could explain the uptick. The Kindle quickly sold out shortly after it was unveiled on Amazon at the end of 2007. However, the company recently cranked up supply to meet demand, and cut the price at the end of May from $399 to $359. Some analysts estimate Kindle sales at around 55,000 a month. At the same time, the Kindle is quirkier than your average gadget, and consumers are learning how to use it. It’s possible that as Kindle owners warm up to the gadget — and as the library of titles rapidly grows — they increase the rate of their purchases. We now return you to more scrutable data points…
So we are asking you, have to started to purchase more e-books for your Kindle now that you have had the device for a few months? or have you recently purchased the Kindle and was that because of the price drop?
The Amazon folks are eager to get the word out about Kindle and they really want people to see a Kindle device, so much so that they want existing Kindle owners to go out and market the device for them! On May 19th Amazon requested that Kindle owners to go out and market the Kindle, actively encouraging you to meet stranger with your $400 Kindle device plus the value of books to meet a total stranger and “show off” – Amazon’s own words – sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
I wonder which smart alec at Amazon PR thought this idea up:
We’ve heard feedback that many Kindle owners love their Kindle and like showing it off. Some of you even said you have trouble reading Kindle in public because people always ask, “What is that?” We’ve also heard from prospective customers who would love to see a Kindle before they buy one.
We created the “See a Kindle in Your City” area to help prospective owners connect with Kindle owners to get a chance to see the device in person. We started with a selection of cities – find yours or start one for your city. Whether you want to meet at your local coffee shop, a public park, or your favorite watering hole is up to you. We hope you enjoy meeting your fellow Kindlers.
Please cut and paste the following link in your browser to go to the “See a Kindle in your City” discussions.
As Michael V. Accettura puts it “What an outrageous request from amazon!” – I couldn’t agree more, Amazon want us Kindle owners to do their job and market the device for them. How about you go out there Amazon, and show off the Kindle yourself? I could understand this request if Amazon was employing some kind of referral system where a sale would result in cash compensation or perhaps a couple of free Kindle e-books from the Kindle store, but Amazon aren’t even doing that.
User Diane point out this may be the perfect “steal a Kindle” opportunity for all technology loving crooks and looking through the forum, unsurprisingly, very few people have taken Amazon up on their offer to parade their Kindle around in front of strangers.
Finally to quote Micael V. Accettiura again “I appreciate the offer to become an unpaid pimp for the kindle, but no thanks amazon.”
Would you take your precious Kindle and show it off to a complete stranger?
In a joint statement today, Amazon.com and Simon & Schuster said will make 5,000 additional titles available for the Amazon Kindle in 2008.
“At Simon & Schuster, we are excited by how many Kindle books we’re selling and the feedback from readers who want to read our titles on their Kindles. We have also learned that readers aren’t just looking for new or bestselling books, but also books that are older or hard to find,” said Carolyn Reidy, President and CEO, Simon & Schuster, Inc. “These are the books that have proven themselves to be of enduring interest, and we want readers to be able to find them anytime, anywhere. We are pleased to take another big step toward that goal by making this great percentage of our active backlist available on Kindle by the end of 2008.”
“Kindle is re-igniting a love of reading — after purchasing a Kindle, customers purchase, on average, just as many physical books, and their total book purchases on Amazon increase by 2.6x. Kindle books are also becoming a meaningful portion of Amazon’s overall book sales much sooner than we anticipated — of the 125,000 books available both as a physical book and on Kindle, Kindle books already account for over 6 percent of units sold,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. “This commitment from Simon & Schuster moves us closer to our vision for Kindle, which is to make any book, ever printed, in any language available in less than 60 seconds.”
Simon & Schuster said that it will be doubleing their content available for the Kindle.
One particular sentence in the statement stood out to me;
…after purchasing a Kindle, customers purchase, on average, just as many physical books, and their total book purchases on Amazon increase by 2.6x
2.6 times! I’m sure the executives at Amazon are thrilled with this particular statistic, it could mean that the Kindle has been a profitable ‘experiment’ — as Amazon puts it — from day one. I have no doubt that Simon & Schuster, and other publishers, want to grab a piece of the action now that they are aware of just how many e-books Kindle owners are buying.
Our old friend Walt Mossberg sat down with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos this morning at the “D: All Things Digital Conference”.
Walt Mossberg gave the Kindle a luke-warm reception back in November calling it “mediocre” and “marred by annoying flaws”. He liked the idea and the shopping experience behind the Kindle, but thought that the device itself was where Kindle’s flaw lied.
Jeff Bezos does his normal sales pitch about the Kindle, but this time he throws in a bit of new information about Kindle sales. Walt asks point blank “How many Kindles have you sold?” Jeff politely refused to answer the question instead he gave us a new stat: “Title-by-title basis…Kindle unit sales more than 6% of total book sales”. So of the 125,000 titles available for Kindle, of all those 125,000 titles that were sold — digital and print — Kindle accounted for 6% of sales. Jeff also said he envisioned a time when e-book sales formed a substantial portion of book sales at Amazon.
Jeff Bezos also commented on a Kindle v2:
“There will be a second version, a third version, a tenth version. … but a second version is not that near.”
It may take a decade to get the product to where Amazon wants it, he said. So this has confirmed what many thought, that Amazon is committed to the Kindle and there will be a Kindle v2 release sometime in the future.
The interview wasn’t just limited to talk about the Kindle, Bezos also talks about the streaming video-on-demand service for Amazon, which will be released in the next couple of weeks amongst other things.
Amazon updated the Kindle product page this morning with a 10% reduction in the price of the Kindle, the price drop is a welcome one and also includes free 2-day shipping. So if you have been waiting for the price to drop before purchasing a Kindle, now is your chance to get one before stocks run out again!
The price drop was expected, as predicted by most analysts, further drops are expected in the future but that all depends on a stable supply of Kindle devices. The reason Kindle has been out of stock so frequently is because a single factory has been manufacturing the Kindles, so far supply has FAR exceeded demand, but just over a month ago Amazon brought on-line a second factory, which should create a more stable supply of Kindle devices.
Amazon is expect to drop the price around 15% a year, so by 2010 the device should be priced at around $300 in line with expectations, meaning I wouldn’t expect another price drop until around Christmas time.
Mark Mahaney is the Citigroup analyst who last week made the assessment that by 2010 Amazon will be earning $750 million in revenue from the Kindle, which would account for 3% of Amazon’s total revenue. He also estimates that Amazon would shift between 189,000 – 600,000 units by the end of the year, growing to 2.2 million units by 2010. Some would argue these are very bullish estimates with good reason, and some would argue that Mark Mahaney is smoking crack, Scott Berry is one of those people who claims the latter.
This is what Scott Berry thinks:
Citi’s Mahaney has even gone so far as to suggest 3% of Amazon’s revenue (about $750M) will come from Kindles within 2 years. Worse yet, he assumes a sales ramp roughly half of the original iPod. Frankly, he’s smoking crack.
If Eliot Spitzer hadn’t brought an end to the practice some years ago (cough, cough), I’d almost think these two were trying to drum up business for their investment banks. Instead it’s probably something much more innocent, like say pumping the stock for the traders.
Strong comments indeed, lets take a look at the reasons why Scott Berry thinks like this:
Think about it: what problem is the e-book solving for consumers?
Gee, if only my book was portable, I could take it with me…
Pushing a button to bookmark my place is SO much easier than bending a page corner.
Those nasty paper cuts.
I can take my whole library with me. (Sure, I often read 10 books at a time. And I wish I could read fast enough to finish several books on a long flight.)
I can download a new book whenever I need one. (Yep. And how long does that take over a pokey wireless link? EVDO isn’t everywhere. And can I read the first page while the rest is downloading?)
It’s cheaper. (True, true. Unless you want to read blogs at $2/week or newspaper feeds at $15/month. That’s a lot to pay for portability.)
The first three points are quite sarcastic, and don’t add to his argument – I don’t think Scott Berry understands the concept behind the ebook. Point 4 sounds like a positive thing to me. Point 5 brings into question whether Scott has even used a Kindle before? On point 6, he is right about the blogs and newspapers being overpriced, $2 a week for a blog feed and up to $15.99 a month for a newspaper subscription is a bit pricey, but I wouldn’t call these ‘problems’ with the e-book concept.
Scott Berry’s arguments boils down to this: He thinks the entire e-book concept is a dud and wont take off and form the sound of his argument it look like he hasn’t seen, let alone used a Kindle before. Berry hasn’t spoken to anyone who has owned a Kindle, if he had he would have noticed that the vast majority of Kindle owners actually love the device, and there are rave reviews up on the Kindle discussion forums. Even may critics changed their minds once they got their hands on the actual device. And I also think he’s missing the bigger picture, the fact that it is Amazon behind the Kindle, you know, one of the biggest book retailers on the planet.
In time we will find out who is right and who is wrong, I suspect it is going to be Mr. Berry.
We have all heard this past week that Amazon is expected to shift around 189,000 – 600,000 units by the end of the year – then 2.2 million units by 2010, but how does this compare with other similarly ‘revolutionary’ devices in their first year in the market?
Silicon Ally Insider has compiled the numbers for us and as we can see from the comparison – if Amazon manages to hit expectations – it puts the Kindle in the same league as the first generation Blackberry’s and iPod’s. Now consider that the Blackberry and iPods are leaders in their field were both met with the same ridicule and suspicion that the Kindle is facing today. So if Amazon keeps plugging away, ignores the critics and keeps improving the device, by the time we get to the 3rd generation Kindle those reports which claimed that the Kindle will be the next iPod might not be so wrong after all.
Also of note might be Zune sales, which after a year sold just over 1 million units. (wiki)
Can Kindle really become the next iPod? please leave your thoughts and comments below.
It seems like the 
was left without one. Sony should take the time to learn from this good example. A friend of mine was sitting on the fence until the last day and finally placed his order at 3PM pacific time on the 23rd and he received his Kindle about the same time I did – around 3PM pacific time on the 24th. I checked the Amazon website and looks as of today (February 25th there is no backlog) – you can still order and get it on the next day (or later if you want to save on shipping).
I guess the figures had to come out sooner or later.
Rampage is literally the word to use in this instance. A Time magazine article last week said;
The Amazon folks are eager to get the word out about Kindle and they really want people to see a Kindle device, so much so that they want existing Kindle owners to go out and market the device for them! On May 19th Amazon requested that Kindle owners to go out and market the Kindle, actively encouraging you to meet stranger with your $400 Kindle device plus the value of books to meet a total stranger and “show off” – Amazon’s own words – sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me.
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