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.

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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 :)

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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.

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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 :)

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