Used Books Blog

TechCrunch recently reported that “240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.” It’s not official, but it’s better than nothing. As a number 240,000 isn’t bad, but it’s tough to tell if it’s good either.

The Kindle launched in late November of 2007 and in five and a half hours sold out, finally going back on sale in late April. So we’re looking at pent up demand and holiday shopping for the launch and then a three month window of more traditional sales. The real viability of Kindle is in traditional sales volume. Therefore, the distribution of that 240,000 between these months is critical.

Did they sell 100,000 that first day and then 140,000 over the next three months? Or was it 30,000 the first day and then 210,000 over the next three months? What is the unit sales trend between May, June and July? Is it accelerating or decreasing? Answers to these questions would help us put the 240,000 figure into proper context.

Again, the 240,000 figure isn’t bad, yet should we really be surprised?

The iPod in particular and hand held devices in general all helped pave the way for a greater acceptance of Kindle. It had the wind at its back, allowing it to tap the innovator and early adopter market with relative ease. So, in some ways you might expect that Kindle should have a better adoption curve. However, let’s face it, books and reading don’t (sadly) have the same market potential as music.

Let’s also figure in the high promotion Amazon has and continues to put behind Kindle. It is regularly featured on the Amazon home page. As a site, Amazon gets approximately 50 million unique visitors a month. Even if only a third see the home page, this means 15+ million people are getting the Kindle pitch each month via the website. Never mind the emails (of which I’ve received two in the last week.)

Assume the best case scenario of 210,000 sold in the three month traditional window with no deceleration. This means 70,000 Kindles sold each month from the 15 million views. The result is a nearly half percent conversion rate. This isn’t half bad in my opinion.

However, the numbers go sideways in a hurry if you choose to use the 50 million number instead of 15 million, or add in additional promotion and reach via affiliates. Then there’s the distribution of the 240,000. If only 140,000 were sold in those three months, then the 70,000 figure drops precipitously.

So, is 240,000 a good number? Time (and disclosure) will tell.

CrunchGear is reporting that Kindle 2.0 could be released as early as October.

The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.

The second new model, which is shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model and should be available next year.

Both models should come in multiple colors and may be aimed at younger readers.

I’m particularly interested in the new model, rumored to be shaped like a standard piece of paper. That, coupled with color, make me believe that Amazon may be targeting textbooks.

As I’ve written previously, the textbook market is perfect for Kindle. The new size and color make it both easy to carry with traditional books and ‘cool’ to boot. (I frankly don’t get the color issue myself, but the demand for pink is tremendous.)

However, the release date of October is a huge miss for this textbook season, which starts just about … now, and gets really big in August until finally petering out in September. So the signals here are a bit mixed.

No doubt Amazon wants the updated first version to be available for the holiday shopping bonanza. That makes complete sense. But if the second model is essentially a Kindle textbook, I just can’t see it being a hot gift. I mean, it’s not socks but getting a digital eTextbook reader isn’t exactly ‘fun’ either.

The drum beat for digital textbooks is getting louder with the closure of Textbook Torrents and Amazon would be wise to aggressively jump into this market as quickly as possible.

Kindle sales have doubled, or so Amazon would like to have you believe. A recent Time story reported the following:

According to a source at Amazon, “on a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles.”

In late May at the D: All Things Digital Conference, Tim O’Reilly reported Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos saying that “kindle sales represent 6% of all Amazon sales for the 125,000 titles that are available on kindle.”

The problem is that these percentages are delivered in a vacuum. There is no indication as to true sales figures. Here’s the issue in a nutshell for those who are statistically challenged.

Let’s say the the 6% figure was based on 1,o00,000 unit sales. That means Kindle sales accounted for 60,000 units. The 12% figure could be based on another time period where unit sales were, say, 800,000. 12% of 800,000 is 96,000 unit sales. So while the percentage of sales rose 100% from 6% t0 12%, actual unit sales only rose 60% from 60,000 to 96,000.

For what time period is each percentage based? Is the 12% figure cumulative? (If so, the June percentage would have to be massive!) Are these based on revenue or unit sales? These are just the basic questions. Never mind the more detailed analysis of unit sales per Kindle, repeat Kindle sales and median channel sales percentage.

It’s hard to believe that investors are willing to take this type of sales obfuscation. We still don’t know how many Kindles were sold! Oh, they were sold out, but it’s a real easy marketing trick to create buzz by selling out a small line of inventory.

You have to ask yourself, why won’t Amazon actually divulge any of the sales data. If it were as great as they make it seem wouldn’t they be shouting it from the rooftops Tarzan style?

Credit Tim O’Reilly and Time’s Josh Quittner for not blindly reporting these ‘figures’ as a success. In particular, I enjoyed Quittner’s opening volley.

Is the Kindle starting to catch fire with consumers? From the Department of Inscrutable Data Points comes word that e-book sales for Amazon’s Kindle — its digital reading device-have doubled during the past two months. Kind of, sort of, maybe.

Others have been less rigorous in their analysis, seeming to trust Amazon on faith and hoping that another iPod like success story is in the making. Convince me Amazon! Just show us the numbers.

According to Inside Higher Ed, Princeton University Press will join other notable University Presses such as Yale University Press, Oxford University Press and The University of California Press in making portions of their catalogs available on Kindle.

University Presses, even the big ones, have often found it difficult to survive, much less flourish. The Kindle could help these struggling presses to find greener pastures. Details on the nature of these relationships is still unknown.

The university presses participating in Kindle were reluctant to describe the specific financial arrangements they have with Amazon (which also declined to discuss them), but said that they were revenue-sharing deals, and that preparing the books for release on Kindle was not particularly burdensome or expensive.

I’d be very interested to know exactly what the revenue sharing deal is at present. Kindle is certainly working hard to make more and more titles available for download. The question is whether this is a type of introductory offer type of deal, sweet at the beginning and then onerous as it moves forward when you’re essentially addicted to the platform. (I’m looking at you Comcast.)

Barbara Fister has a great comment to the Inside Higher Ed piece:

I don’t have any objection to UPs trying this revenue stream (even self-published authors are doing it), but I doubt the Kindle will revolutionize the textbook market.

First, if illustrations and color and permission-based images are problematic, that’s a hurdle. Second, the publisher sets the price, and they haven’t shown much inclination to price electronic versions at a steep enough discount to tempt students in huge numbers. Third — students object to paying a lot for a book that they can’t share or resell, and they won’t be all that thrilled that they can’t buy a used copy. (I’m skeptical that you can download a Kindle book to your computer — isn’t that a violation of their terms of service?)

Add to that students in Montana and Alaska are outta luck (the wireless network that Amazon uses doesn’t reach there) and students would be forced to spend a lot of money for the a gadget that limits their shopping to a single store.

The price is certainly an issue. The Kindle versions come at what seems like a 10% discount. It would take a substantial number of titles to offset the $300+ cost of the Kindle itself. In addition, you can’t resell these books.

In ‘analog’ form, you can sell a number of these titles back to a University Bookstore or independent bookseller for more than 10% of the purchase price. I recall with great glee the end of the semester when I’d sell back my textbooks to the University Bookstore. Not all were accepted and I probably only got 20% to 50% of the original purchase price but … it was enough for a weekend splurge at the local watering hole.

This one currently lands in the A for effort pile, but incomplete as the grade of record.