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The Kindle Skews Amazon's 2011 Best-Seller List
destinyland writes "Amazon's released their list of 2011's best-selling books, revealing that 40% of the best-selling ebooks didn't even make it onto their list of the best-selling print books. The #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks of the year weren't even available in print editions, while four of the top 10 best-selling print books didn't make it into the top 100 best-selling ebooks. 'It couldn't be more clear that Kindle owners are choosing their material from an entirely different universe of books,' notes one Kindle site, which points out that five of the best-selling ebooks came from two million-selling ebook authors — Amanda Hocking and John Locke — who are still awaiting the release of their books in print. And five of Amazon's best-selling ebooks were Kindle-only 'Singles,' including a Stephen King short story which actually outsold another King novel that he'd released in both ebook and print formats. And Neal Stephenson's 'Reamde' was Amazon's #99 best-selling print book of 2011, though it didn't even make it onto their list of the 100 best-selling ebooks of the year. 'People who own Kindles are just reading different books than the people who buy printed books,' reports the Kindle site, which adds '2011 may be remembered as the year that hundreds of new voices finally found their audiences.'"
The eBooks on that list ranged from $1-$3 (no shipping of course), whereas the print books ranged from $8-$15 (plus shipping). All other things being equal, of course the eBooks are going to outsell the print ones at those prices.
Hell, the cheaper prices and not having to pay shipping is why a lot of people buy Kindles in the first place. Not to sound like an ad here, but Kindle versions usually run anywhere from $5-$10 cheaper than their print counterparts, you get them right away, and there is no $4 extra for shipping.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Do you really trust a list made by a company that wants everyone to think that the e-version is the way to go. To be fair there should be two lists. One for ebooks and one for hardback. Mixing them together trying to confuse the issue to make it seem like there e-products are better or the way to go is a sham in the sense it that it is bad marketing to not try to sale people on their other products.
In case anybody's mystified as to why REAMDE is selling better in print, it's because it's cheaper in hardcover, new, than it is on the Kindle. It's that simple.
Treeware is (obviously) DRM-free. I'm curious as to how sales would like when controlled not just for price but for DRM-free versus DRM-infested.
I know for a fact that I buy or read a lot more stuff from DRM-free places *cough*Baen*cough* than I do from places that insist on DRM.
Would you read different books if you bought a Kindle?
I'm a recent Kindle (Keyboard and Fire) owner. I probably spend US$50 a month on books. Over the years, I've accumulate a collection large enough to make me worry about how much floor loading my attic can stand. So having new books reduced to bits seems attractive. And the Kindle is often just easier to work with since I can adjust the print size to suit my vision comfort. Since I got my Kindle Keyboard (in August), I've downloaded and read about 100 titles. Not all of them were novel-length; I'd say on average the "book" was more like novella-length.
Also, I find myself buying eBooks that I'd probably not buy as pBooks (physical books), partly because they're cheaper and partly because they are impulse buys -- it takes me a few seconds to get a book over the internet and about two hours to drive to the nearest bookstore, buy a book and drive home. I found half a dozen authors I now buy regularly that I probably never would be reading if I'd had time to second-guess the "hmm... that looks interesting" reaction.
The reason ebook only books sell better is because they are priced in line with the market for ebooks. The market is clear that the correct price for a bunch of bits that make an ebook is up to ~$4. The traditional publishers are trying to use their monopoly to enforce a dead tree price on a bunch of electrons, and they are being outsold by less rigid authors who want to make money, not maintain control.
It's free to you - but not to Amazon.
Amazon's business model would collapse if they had to physical ship $1 dollar books and absorb the shipping. On the other hand, it can work with electronic delivery.
That being said, a lot of the “books” being suggested are actually short stories. It’s a format I love but few people do it because there small so they can’t make money off of them – or is that changing? In any event, I would pay a dollar or two for popcorn books, but if I pay big bucks (over $5) it had better be a big, luxuries meal that will take some time to savory.
Also, did anybody else notice the self published books?
It’s not that Kindle readers are reading different kind of books, but the e-readers allow readers to buy different types of books.
1. I wouldn't be too hard on your book - I'm sure it isn't crap :-) What I've read thus far of it doesn't seem like crap :-)
... 10 or more), I'll package it into a single eBook and sell it for money.
2. The Harry Potter books didn't get successful via self-publishing (they were never self-published, were they?)
3. I write too, but have committed myself to only a single short story per week. I've got about seven completed now (science-fiction and humour, downloadable for free from smashwords (see my sig). The great thing about short stories is that you get to make your point, entertain your reader and have a sense of completion relatively quickly. For example, one of my short stories is only half a page long! Another is almost a novella at 19 pages (8500 words). Each one took at least a week (and, I do the cover art myself). My hope is that, instead of writing a full-length novel, I can put together a collection of short stories and sell those. For now, each of the stories are free. When I've got enough to make a collection (say
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Especially DRM'd e-books with lock-in. Physical books are more expensive since you have to print, ship, maybe ship again. As physical books start going away ("Look at the overhead we're saving on going all e-book!"), and e-books become more popular, why wouldn't expect to see price creep?
(This is in response to the discussions on pricing above, in which I didn't see this point brought up.)
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I wonder if the ebook sales indicate more precisely what people actually want to read, as opposed to what the marketing machine of bookstores convinces them to buy. (You didn't really think that piles of "our recommended books" or even "best-seller" lists were fair and/or merely the things that bookstore employees liked, did you?)
Of course marketing does affect ebook sales as well, but perhaps not as much as the effect of being in a store and seeing a pile of what's clearly the latest hot seller, the book that everybody is talking about, which obviously you should buy. Not to mention that the selection in a physical store is so limited, which thus skews sales toward what is already selling well (whether fairly or not).