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Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter - By Thomas McKinney Amazon's browser-based online Kindle store By Tom McKinney E-books are enjoying a wave of growth as new devices like Apple's iPad and its competitors provide a great platform for a potential rebirth in reading for the future. Spurred also by price cuts to many of the leading E-Readers (see my article last month about Amazon and Barnes & Noble's price war), and by cheaper pricing page per page versus hardcover books, Amazon.com announced earlier this month that for the entire second quarter, their Kindle e-books had outsold hardcovers by a margin of 143 to 100. And that wasn't all; the pace has also been accelerating - the last month they sold closer to 180 e-books for every 100 hardbacks. And finally, it's overall rate of e-book sales for the first six months of 2010 has been more than three times that of 2009. I've been watching the news and reading articles trying to make sense of it all. Many publications in the media seem to have equated the term "hardcover" to mean hard copy. I've seen the two replaced as if they were synonyms. Sadly, they are not. Last year, Publisher's Weekly projected hardcover sales to be about $4.4 billion in 2009, while paperbacks were expected to generate $5.1B. In that same Weekly report, e-books were anticipated to produce about $81 million in 2009. Not exactly a fox in a henhouse, though, the fox is looking more and more like a lion! And, there is absolutely a difference between hardcover and hard copy. To clarify Amazon's meaning, here's a quote from their News Release, dated July 19, 2010: "Recent milestones for Kindle books include: • Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. This is across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher."
Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter - By Thomas McKinney Amazon's newly released $139 Kindle There's actually no mention of paperbacks or "hard copies" anywhere on their release. So while it may seem like the world of contemporary books is ending, it's not as bad as you thought. Let's take a look at why e-books are outpacing their hardcover counterparts. I'll start with price. Multiple times, I found references to the average hardcover price being $26 so I will present that figure. Amazon's own news release says that of the 630,000 e-books in their Kindle store, 510,000 of them cost $9.99 or less. The rest cost around $12.99. In either case, if consumers already have e-reader capable devices like tablets, and price were a factor, there's quite a difference. There's also the fact that the prices of dedicated E-Reader devices like the Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook have been coming down ever since Apple released the iPad. Amazon, in fact, announced just a few days ago another Kindle reader device ; this one the cheapest yet with a $139 pricepoint. Five or six hardcover volumes at retail + tax and we're looking at the price of a reader already! Another reason hardcover sales are on the decline is the emphasis put on portability. In this digital age, our devices are getting smaller and thinner; and beyond that, they're cramming more features than ever before into ever-shrinking spaces. Hardcover books don't fit into that world without effort. They're a reminder of an analog time, with a price tag they're supposed to merit but anymore many view those benefits as negatives.
Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter - By Thomas McKinney The last edge e-books have over hardcovers, and paperbacks too in this case, is accessibility. If you have an Internet connection on your e-book reader, you can buy books 24 hours a day, from the comfort of wherever you choose, and, you have them virtually instantly. It's not a huge deal to go to the bookstore and pick up something new, but it's an extra step, especially in some cities where parking isn't always easy! And sometimes, that book you want isn't available at the store (though there's no guarantee it's available as an e-book either!) so you have to order it and wait for shipping. These factors are significant enough for publishers to worry about the future of hardcover bindings. I believe it's inevitable that volumes bound in hardcovers will become the realm of the collector. They're inherently more collectible than paperbacks when considering condition, ability to withstand time, and production runs. Of course, responsible collectors will, after buying a hardcover, never open it to maintain condition. If they actually want to read it, I'd suggest downloading the e-text!

Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter

- By Thomas McKinney

Amazon's browser-based online Kindle store

By Tom McKinney

E-books are enjoying a wave of growth as new devices like Apple's iPad and its competitors provide a great platform for a potential rebirth in reading for the future. Spurred also by price cuts to many of the leading E-Readers (see my article last month about Amazon and Barnes & Noble's price war), and by cheaper pricing page per page versus hardcover books, Amazon.com announced earlier this month that for the entire second quarter, their Kindle e-books had outsold hardcovers by a margin of 143 to 100. And that wasn't all; the pace has also been accelerating - the last month they sold closer to 180 e-books for every 100 hardbacks. And finally, it's overall rate of e-book sales for the first six months of 2010 has been more than three times that of 2009.

I've been watching the news and reading articles trying to make sense of it all. Many publications in the media seem to have equated the term "hardcover" to mean hard copy. I've seen the two replaced as if they were synonyms. Sadly, they are not. Last year, Publisher's Weekly projected hardcover sales to be about $4.4 billion in 2009, while paperbacks were expected to generate $5.1B. In that same Weekly report, e-books were anticipated to produce about $81 million in 2009. Not exactly a fox in a henhouse, though, the fox is looking more and more like a lion! And, there is absolutely a difference between hardcover and hard copy. To clarify Amazon's meaning, here's a quote from their News Release, dated July 19, 2010:

"Recent milestones for Kindle books include:
• Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books. This is across Amazon.com's entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher."

Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter

- By Thomas McKinney

Amazon's newly released $139 Kindle

There's actually no mention of paperbacks or "hard copies" anywhere on their release. So while it may seem like the world of contemporary books is ending, it's not as bad as you thought.

Let's take a look at why e-books are outpacing their hardcover counterparts. I'll start with price. Multiple times, I found references to the average hardcover price being $26 so I will present that figure. Amazon's own news release says that of the 630,000 e-books in their Kindle store, 510,000 of them cost $9.99 or less. The rest cost around $12.99. In either case, if consumers already have e-reader capable devices like tablets, and price were a factor, there's quite a difference. There's also the fact that the prices of dedicated E-Reader devices like the Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook have been coming down ever since Apple released the iPad. Amazon, in fact, announced just a few days ago another Kindle reader device ; this one the cheapest yet with a $139 pricepoint. Five or six hardcover volumes at retail + tax and we're looking at the price of a reader already!

Another reason hardcover sales are on the decline is the emphasis put on portability. In this digital age, our devices are getting smaller and thinner; and beyond that, they're cramming more features than ever before into ever-shrinking spaces. Hardcover books don't fit into that world without effort. They're a reminder of an analog time, with a price tag they're supposed to merit but anymore many view those benefits as negatives.

Amazon's E-Books Outsell Hardcovers for the 2nd Quarter

- By Thomas McKinney

The last edge e-books have over hardcovers, and paperbacks too in this case, is accessibility. If you have an Internet connection on your e-book reader, you can buy books 24 hours a day, from the comfort of wherever you choose, and, you have them virtually instantly. It's not a huge deal to go to the bookstore and pick up something new, but it's an extra step, especially in some cities where parking isn't always easy! And sometimes, that book you want isn't available at the store (though there's no guarantee it's available as an e-book either!) so you have to order it and wait for shipping.

These factors are significant enough for publishers to worry about the future of hardcover bindings. I believe it's inevitable that volumes bound in hardcovers will become the realm of the collector. They're inherently more collectible than paperbacks when considering condition, ability to withstand time, and production runs. Of course, responsible collectors will, after buying a hardcover, never open it to maintain condition. If they actually want to read it, I'd suggest downloading the e-text!