While B&N had some disappointing financial results, Amazon is riding high on some good news this week. They’ve had glowing early reviews for the Kindle 3, and some (unofficial) numbers indicate they’re trouncing Apple in the ebook wars.
First, the Kindle 3 reviews. CNET, Kindle Review, and several other sites received review units, and everyone uniformly loved it! It sounds like the new screen and smaller size really help the Kindle to shine. Len Edgerly did a great video review as well:
So the glowing reviews of the Kindle 3 are certainly one way to kill the “OMG iPad IS GOING TO KILLLLLLL THE KINDLE” meme. But author J.A. Konrath has put another nail in that coffin with his Kindle sales numbers versus iBooks. Apparently, he’s selling 200 ebooks per day on the Kindle, but only 100 per MONTH on iBooks.
To be fair, this is one author, and arguably the Kindle simply casts a far wider net than iBooks. While iPads may have outsold Kindles, the Kindle app is available on the iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android and PCs and Macs, giving Amazon several times the potential market that Apple has. Even taking that into account, it’s startling how few iBooks Konrath is selling.
Of course, not all news is good news. The Wall Street Journal reported that the exclusive deal Andrew Wylie struck with Amazon has been broken. Apparently, Random House made a deal with Wylie after a dispute over ebook and paper book publishing rights. Disappointing for Amazon, but its a small number of books, and this deal is only opening the books to other stores. Kindle owners and app users won’t notice a difference, and it’s not likely people were switching platforms just for “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.
Plus, with Amazon’s press release that the Kindle 3 is their fastest selling Kindle ever, they clearly don’t need exclusive deals to lock in customers! It is only Wednesday, but it certainly seems like a good week to be Amazon!
Although the Kindle, as a device, doesn’t meet my needs, it’s a great device for what it is. Personally, I use the iPad for my eBook needs and I love that I can choose content from a wide variety of sources including Amazon or Apple.
That said, I do not purchase much from the iBooks store but for only one reason – availability. The content I want is simply not available there (or on B&N or Borders/Kobo or anywhere else). Amazon has the largest eBook selection (ignoring Google’s “partial books that we will count the same as a complete book” and nonsense like that). If iBooks had the content I wanted and needed, I’d purchase more items from them. Amazon simply has the largest catalog and that’s what keeps me coming. Not price. Not features. When Apple learns that people want more than just the NYT bestseller list, then I will likely give them another try. Until then Amazon will get my content dollars – but not my device dollars! Now if we can only get Amazon to update some of their original poorly-formatted books leftover from the Mobi days…. 🙂
At the rate Apple is “negotiating” with publishers you’re not likely to see much content for a while. Don’t forget that Apple was unable to strike a deal with Random House like they did with the “Agency 5”. And Random House is the biggest US publisher…and if I recall correctly they own several sci fi and mass market imprints, which means it really cuts down what Apple offers. But apparently Apple doesn’t care, and Random House is holding firm and waiting to see what happens. So far it doesn’t look like RH has lost much business considering the volume of sales at Amazon and B&N.
I know Amazon releases some “corrected” ebooks if there’s severe typos and formatting issues. Next time you encounter one try dropping an email to customer service. Worst case is nothing happens, but they may end up flagging and fixing it!