TNW has put out an interesting article today on Kindle e-book sales compared to iBook sales, going as far as to say that the Kindle still outsells Apple’s equivalent by 60-to-1.
In June, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said iBooks had already captured 22 percent of the e-book market, a gigantic number given that the store had just launched. Many were skeptical of Job’s number, however.
TNW spoke with J.A. Konrath, a popular author who is a huge fan of the future of e-books, about how well sales are going for him, on both platforms.
Konrath publishes his books on Kindle himself, cutting out publishers that used to take most of his profits. By doing so, and selling his e-books at a very reasonable $3 a piece, Konrath is making over $2 per book sold. When his books were in paperback, he was lucky to make $0.80 for every $10 book sold.
The author compared sales from iBooks, the Kindle, and from paperback: “Publishers might be looking at enriched or enhanced ebooks as their new big-ticket items to replace hardcovers. But the major ebook retailer, Amazon, isn’t set up for video. Kindle isn’t even able to do color yet. That leaves Apple, and according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market. I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month.”
Given an average 30-day month, that is 6000 books sold on the Kindle and just 100 through iBooks, a 60-to-1 ratio.
While this is just one author’s figures, Job’s 22 percent number seems to be misleading, at best.
Result for: e books
Amazon has said today that deceased author Stieg Larsson has become the first in the Kindle Million Club, an honor bestowed to authors that have produced over one million Kindle e-book sales.
The Club is only for paid books, not counting the 1.8 million books available for free via the Kindle Store.
Larsson died in 2004 of a heart attack, and was best known for his “Millennium Trilogy” mystery crime novels. All three books, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” are top ten all-time best sellers for Kindle.
Four other authors; Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts have each sold over 500,000 Kindle books.
E-books, while increasing daily in sales, still have a way to go before catching up to their print brothers. In the United States, e-books account for 8.48 percent of all book sales, according to the Association of American Publishers.
The Kindle e-reader recently dropped in price from $250 to $190, and Amazon also released an updated Kindle DX for $379, a steep price drop off the first-generation device which sold for $489.
Result for: e books
Google is on the verge of settling with Chinese authors, says the Chinese Writers’ Association, after months of fighting over whether Google had the right to scan books and upload them for its giant online library.
“Following discussions and communications in recent months, we do believe that our communication with Chinese writers has not been good enough,” Google said in a letter to the Association. “Google is ready to apologize to Chinese writers about this.” The letter was signed by Erik Hartmann, Asia-Pacific head of Google Books.
Just last month, the case of author Mian Mian went to Chinese court and the judge told both sides to settle the case.
Overall, Google has scanned 10 million books since 2004, getting consent for 2 million from publishers. Another 2 million are public domain. The remaining 6 million are still in dispute.
