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Amazon Sells More Ebooks On Christmas Than Real Books

Posted by Soulskill on from the takes-way-more-to-stuff-a-stocking-though dept.

ctmurray writes "Amazon reports for the first time ever they sold more ebooks on one day than real books. My wife is an ebook-only author and reported her largest single day sales on Christmas day, and December has been her best month ever as well. All those Kindles bought for this season are being seen in ebook sales." The battle with publishers over pricing seems to be coming to the fore as well.

16 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Greedy publishers by vvaduva · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why isn't Amazon getting into the publishing business to avoid all these greedy publisher problems? They have enough weight to put out ebooks without the involvement of people who seek out to drain every dollar from the author of the book, so I am not getting it. Perhaps contractual obligations prevent them from doing so, but we are no longer living in the time when only the guy with the printing press dictated how things are done. Or am I wrong?

    1. Re:Greedy publishers by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      First, they have to prove that there is a market.

      The eBooks publishing method and the actual recruitment of authors are two separate businesses. In the laster case, they have to build up an infrastructure of editors and associated staff, and even a financing arm (for advances).

      They may simply not want to take the risk and capital cost to get into the publishing business, preferring to do "one" thing well: distribution.

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    2. Re:Greedy publishers by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Informative

      They are in the publishing business - it's called booksurge and is apparently in the process of being rebranded CreateSpace.

      This is print on demand, self publishing stuff but reading the above articles make it pretty clear to me that this is where stuff is headed. The big publishing houses don't make a lot of sense any more. Pretty much like music.

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      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
    3. Re:Greedy publishers by srothroc · · Score: 3, Interesting

      How is it clear that this is where publishing is headed? This makes no sense at all to me.

      Booksurge allows for smaller runs of books with authors running their own publicity -- the only person I can think of who has done this successfully is Wil Wheaton, who had a leg up in the form of childhood fame. What it does not give you is an established infrastructure for support, connections with other publishers/countries, advances, editorial advice, and additional contracts/advertising. These are all things that I would imagine are very, very useful for writers.

      For readers, traditional publishing houses offer filters in the form of editors and the people who read the slush pile. When you buy a book from a large publishing house like Tor, Penguin, or Macmillan, you can expect a certain level of quality in the writing. This isn't say that all of their books are good or will fit your tastes, but there's a certain standard that the editors at those houses will try to adhere to; it's how they stay in business.

      To use a car analogy, a traditional publishing house is like a dealership that sells only new Hyundais; you might not like everything or the prices, but you can expect a certain standard. A self-publisher like Booksurge would be more like a dealership that specializes in selling cars built from the ground-up, or kit cars... by hobbyists. Sure, some people may know what they're doing and you'll get an amazing car, but a lot of them will probably be crap.

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    4. Re:Greedy publishers by thesuperbigfrog · · Score: 3, Informative

      They are in the ebook publishing business with the Amazon Digital Test Platform: https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

      You can have your book published directly to Kindle and get better royalties than many other publishers would give you.

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    5. Re:Greedy publishers by stoolpigeon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Booksurge allows for smaller runs of books..."
       
      It allows for an unlimited run of ebooks. This is the issue I'm talking about. As more people purchase more books in electronic format as opposed to dead tree, big publishers will become less relevant.
       
      There are still a number of services that a publisher can provide, and my guess would be that Booksurge and the like can or will provide them. So in a way, publishers will still exist, and they will still be a part of distribution but it is now all electronic and the payment structure will shift to reflect that.
       
          In the last link, about the battle with publishers over pricing, it seems apparent to me that the primary leverage the publisher brings to the table is access to the markets, but that ceases to exist with digital media.
       
      This should go without saying in any web forum, but I'm not a published author and I'm not involved in the publishing business. These are just my opinions as an avid reader and someone who spends a lot of time online. That said, I read the vast majority of my books off-line. The ebook readers and their functionality still aren't there for me. The ebooks I do read, I read on my laptop. I've never payed money for an ebook.

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      It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  2. One day only by LoverOfJoy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It makes sense that ebooks would outsell regular books on Christmas.

    How many people actually get online to buy regular books on Christmas day? The presents for others have already been bought. They aren't likely to get anything for themselves. Heck, unless you got a Kindle for Christmas you aren't likely to even go to the Amazon website on Christmas day. Most people are spending time with their family and enjoying the presents they DID receive. The people that are more into physical books likely got some physical books from friends or family. But the ones who got a Kindle will find it pretty useless until they put some books on it. Sure the gift giver may have put some books on there to begin with but more likely they gave them some cash or gift card to select their own books with.

  3. Re:public insanity? by Endo13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hate to break it to you, but Joe Sixpack isn't that savvy. He doesn't know what DRM is, and he hasn't a clue what fucked up his music. Same thing for Grandma Jones. They're more likely to think it's somehow the band's fault that their CD didn't work, and will never buy their music again, in any form. Or they believe that the CD player is broken, because the disc worked in a different player.

    Also, bad as DRM is, most people actually don't have trouble with it.

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  4. Misleading.... by KronosReaver · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just like iTunes, Amazon generates a zero dollar sales receipt when you download a free Ebook from them. And there are plenty of those to be found, mostly the first book in a series... "Hey Kid, The first ones FREE." - but we will be counting it as a "Sale".

  5. Where is the catch? by giladpn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lets all look around us; people who read books have not moved en-masse to e-books. So how come Amazon is announcing sales of e-books have surpassed regular books?

    There is a trendiness effect. People who usually do NOT read books may still buy an e-book reader for someone else... esepcially on official toy-giving day a.k.a xmas.

    Sure, eventually e-book readers make sense and will replace paper. I'm just saying that day is not now.

    In fact, by the time e-book readers replace paper, they may look like paper themselves. There is a tech trend towards computers that are as thin as a sheet of paper...

    Personally I like paper, so I will buy an e-book when it catches up and becomes as thin as paper. Not long to wait - a year or three.

    1. Re:Where is the catch? by tgd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Depends where you are, and the type of reader crowd you are talking about.

      I've been in cafes where the ratio of Kindle to print readers was easily 2:1, and probably higher. If you travel a lot on business, the numbers are clearly through the roof on flights. That makes sense -- lugging books on business trips is just lousy.

      What Amazon has said repeatedly is among the demographic that tends to buy a lot of books, the Kindle is taking over. Its telling when they can release numbers showing that 1/3 of their sales of books where electronic copies are available are electronic.

      Nothing in the article suggests its replacing paper now, they're just saying for the first time they sold more ebooks than real books on a day, regardless of the reason. Thats still a significant step.

  6. Re:!sales by ClosedSource · · Score: 3, Funny

    "or leaving them on a train for strangers"

    Of course you can. You just leave your Kindle behind.

  7. Kindle Prices ... by tgd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I got an Amazon gift certificate for Christmas, because Amazon has no mechanism to gift Kindle books (which is strangely shortsighted, but not the topic on hand...)

    I did buy one book with it, but three other books I was going to buy the kindle copies were substantially more than the print copies (in one case, more than double the cost -- $19.97 versus something in the $8 range for a *hardcover*!)

    I'm not sure if others have noticed, but lately Kindle books have been trending upwards in price, and its pretty common now that paperback editions are less than the Kindle copies, whereas six months ago they tended to be cheaper, if only by a nickel or something...)

    I don't know if prices jumped on Christmas because they expected this, and will come back down, or if these higher prices I noticed on that day will persist into the new year. I'm not sure what Amazon is thinking -- gaming prices is a bad idea when you start getting competition that people actually are talking about.

  8. Price is the problem. by n0dna · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I got a Sony PR-505 last year and have yet to purchase a single ebook.

    The DRM bothers me, but there are enough python scripts running around that will strip it out of the epub/pdf formats that it's not that much of a concern.

    Price is why I don't buy them. While there are a handful of public domain books worth reading (opinion) the real content is only for sale.

    I just flat-out refuse to pay 50% more for the same content in basically the same format that the publisher already has filed away somewhere. When do you think the last time that a major popular author wrote out a manuscript on a typewriter was? Or longhand? You know it's already in an electronic document format somewhere.

    No printing, no binding, no shipping, no stocking, no returns. No fuel, no toxic waste from the paper making process, no toxins from the inks.

    Yet I get to pay 50% more?

    1. Re:Price is the problem. by n0dna · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's my point exactly.

      If the physical paperback is $7, why is the ebook $10?

      Yeah, it's only a couple of bucks, but if the ebooks actually cost $3 more apiece to produce, I'll eat my hat.

       

  9. Re:How many bought both? by Abcd1234 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seems that way, doesn't it... :)

    Incidentally, I happen to agree with you that DRM, in general, is awful. But the truth is, for the most part, DRM just isn't a workable technology. So as long as an option exists for me to strip away the DRM on the content I purchase, I'm largely indifferent. That said, until it was clear that the Kindle DRM was thoroughly hacked, I was largely in the "not for me" camp. But now, I'd definitely consider it (once the price comes down a bit on the device), just as I'm happy to purchase DVDs.