If you follow the ebook market you were likely stunned this June when Steve Jobs claimed to have captured 22% of the electronic book market overnight with the release of iBooks and iPad. Many of us who watch this market with careful eyes were leery of the numbers that Jobs was tossing around, they sounded too good to be true.
Now authors are a fun lot, but it is usually quite difficult to pry numbers out of them. There is a wonderful exception to that rule in the fiction market, J. A. Konrath, whose personal blog is a treasure trove of advice and commentary for and to young and upcoming authors. Konrath is bullish on ebooks, and is making a killing selling his books that used to be in paperback on Kindle and other platforms for $2.99 a piece. It’s transformed his life as a mid-list author into something much more: a very financially successful man.
By publishing his books on Kindle himself for example, he makes a little more than $2 for every $2.99 ebook that he sells, not bad. For his books in print, assuming he makes the standard 8% rate for mass market fiction, he might clear 80 cents on a ten dollar paper book. You can see how the math works in his favor with digital words.
Konrath has large enough sales volume to have a strong sample size. He has more than three dozen books on all the major platforms, and he shares his sales numbers with the community. How do iBooks and Kindle stack up side by side? According to his most recent blog post, iBooks is a big fizzle in terms of real sales:
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.
To calculate: 200 books a day for the 30 days in a month is 6,000 books for Konrath just on Kindle, putting his Kindle sales at a 60 to 1 ratio (6000:100) when compared to iBooks. Whoops.
So what was Jobs talking about when he shot out that 22% number? Perhaps in the first few heady days of the iPad launch people really were snapping up every book in sight, but now it seems that the massive Kindle install base across Kindle readers and the Kindle software which has a home on every platform is comfortably in the lead.
So much for iPad killing Kindle. I called it.
As if you can believe anything that comes from Steve Jobs grill.
F—ing equivocator…
Number of titles available for purchase on iBooks in Australia? Zero.
Number of titles available on Amazon Kindle site? Almost 700,000.
Might be important :)
Using one author sales totals is not valid. If you did a study with 1,000 of authors it would say something. You seemed to pick out the one case to support your facts. Apple is not concerned about the Kindle sales as there is a Kindle iPad and iPhone app. There is enough room for all in this space and I have the Kindle, iPhone and iPad.
I think it’s a bit early for either Steve Jobs or you to claim anything about market share, especially using such a miniscule sample. For example, what if those who buy iPads are not fans of J.A. Konrath’s work? I’m not, and I’m an iPad user. Also, my personal use isn’t to run out and buy all kinds of books, but to buy one and read it. As more iPads are sold, the impact on the ebook market is likely to grow. I still think that one day I’ll be able to say that I called it.
Not sure I agree, I use Kindle on my iPad and PC to buy and read Kindle books. I don’t own a standalone Kindle.
To me, owning an iPad means that you have the option of using any ereader you want.
did you check if ipad sell the book a the same price as on amazon? If amazon is cheaper, it might explain alot
That is an absurd headline for this article. For statistics to have meaning the method used for sampling is crucial. If one spends much time looking for titles it doesn’t take long to learn that Kindle has vastly more titles available. But both Apple and Kindle seem to have recent mass market titles. I believe that these titles constitute the sales that determine market share (hence the term “best seller”).
The information presented in the article is almost a textbook example of anecdotal evidence. It is interesting but not much more than that.
Agree with Steve. Very anecdotal evidence.
I would say that soon readers wil be almost free and money will be made on ebooks. I just need more anecdotal evidence to prove that ;-)
What? You are basing your POV on one author and even he is not quite quasi relevant.
Disagree with that one, to some people he is very relevant.
@ steve
You make the same mistake you criticize. Choosing “best sellers” is also anecdotal. A true sample size would be comprised of both (Ideally you would have a number of books, regardless of authors, genre, popularity, age etc etc), anything else is segmented along any lines your sample is (hence your result would be biased towards best sellers). Besides this guy has titles on both, so your “Both seem to have mass market titles” is largely irrelevant.
@alex:
+1 to sample concerns
Also the question is kinda wonky. Kindle is available on every medium that iBooks is available, but iBooks is not available on the Kindle. Maybe we should be asking how well Kindle does vs iBooks on iWhatever. That would be interesting, but no data here :( I kinda expect Kindle to dominate the market, because iBooks can’t compete on Kindle or any other ereader. How is this mind-blowing?
I don’t really know what question this answers…If amazon has twice as many books as Apple available, they will sell more books, period. The title is Kindle vs iBook, and to be true they have to stick to total iBook vs Kindle sales, regardless of whether they are on both platforms. Hence how good a job they do of signing authors is important, but also left out here. Personally I think this is more of something you should worry about as an investor or when you want to buy a Kindle, from an author’s perspective its not as important as,…
If you had to choose, whether it is in the best interest of an author to publish on a Kindle vs iBooks. in which case I wouldn’t discount the fact that Kindle has more books. (may not be a good point, but is it better to be 1 of 5 similar books on iBook with a small market or 1 of 50 books on Kindle with a larger market?) Maybe it just means as a fiction writer the Kindle market is saturated because of this guy so I should stick to iBooks.
This post seems like it has a nice catchy title (link bait), but upon further scrutiny you kinda (somewhat scratch but) miss the point. Not trying to be mean, but you give a shaky, anecdotal, highly qualified answer.
In short, why do I care if a fiction writer sells 60-1? (Like how I put that at the end )
+1 to sample concerns, I would love to have more data. There isn’t any more that I can go on. This is the by far the biggest author in terms of titles and sales to give away his full numbers. I used what I had.
The massive multiple was all I was trying to bring notice to, not the *exact* perfect ratio.
The wise thing to have done, in that case, is to wait till you have sufficient data. Instead, you had make many people shake their heads. Sad
Number of iBooks available in Canada ZERO ’0′ – this has a lot to do with these numbers… Amazon sells world wide – iBooks are pretty much still only available in the US. Wait until licensing is sorted out and we’ll see the numbers change dramatically.
Not what I’m seeing – my iBooks are currently outselling Kindle 10 to 1. keen to see what happens when new Kindle ships later in the week.
Cool, what are your titles? I would love to check them out.
You’re making two major errors, which will no doubt get you the page views you’re after, but which undermine your point.
First, anyone claiming they were “right” from a data point of one doesn’t understand statistics. The plural of anecdote isn’t data.
Second, you’re falling into Highlander Syndrome: the idea that “there can be only one”. There’s room in the ebooks market for multiple suppliers. The idea that Kindle will “kill” iBooks – or vice versa – is a fantasy that lives only in the mind of fanboys.
There is vastly more space than one, I never said that Kindle will kill iBooks, just that iBooks won’t kill Kindle. I use Kindle on my iPad – there is plenty of space.
Well, you did say “so much for iPad killing Kindle” at the end – but I take your point, and I have to apologise for my snarky tone in that comment too. I obviously hadn’t had enough coffee when I wrote it :)
Meanwhile, a data point you might be interested in:
http://www.idealog.com/blog/weve-had-gradually-get-ready-for-suddenly
That’s for the post-launch iBooks era, but the sales figures in that look pretty interesting.
You’re misinterpreting your data. I own an iPad, not a Kindle. But I’ve bought four times as many Kindle books – to read on my iPad using the Kindle Reader app. I’d bet that many, if not most of those Kindle books Konrath is selling are being read on iPads – and iPhones and Blackberrys.
Amazon will probably lose the hardware game but win content game. When I go to Amazon.com to look for a new book and I’m presented with a choice of the hardcover for $17.95 or the Kindle version for $9.99 (to read on my iPad), there’s no contest. But when I went to buy the reading hardware, the fact that even reading email on the Kindle is painful much less browsing the Net? Again, no contest.
I think that we agree? I prefer Kindle on iPad as well. iBooks != iPad
Nobody is reading ebooks on the ipad. Quite simply, iPad LCD backlight makes it IMPOSSIBLE to read ebooks on it for hours.
Not for me :(
Well I think it’s just a matter of time before the book sales on ipad outnumber those in kindle. The kindle will need to be made much cheaper to sell as a stand alone ebook device. Jobs might have got the numbers wrong but I don’t think the kindle will stand a chance against the ipad simply because the ipad will bring new people to the ebook market: those who never really considered buying the kindle in the first place.
I think the data above is being mis-interpreted. I own an iPad. I read a lot of e-books on it. I buy my books with the Kindle App as the selection is better and the buying experience is better with Amazon.
A Kindle purchase does not mean people are reading the e-book on a KIndle.
And yes, I can read for hours on my iPad with no issues.
As Jobs would say, “it’s all about the software”. The Kindle app is superior to the iBookstore app — much easier to browse and find midlist books. iBookstore is a frustrating experience, basically showing only the top bestsellers, genre categories are too broad, and you can’t slice and dice (search based on narrow criteria). It’s an Edsel. My guess is that most iPad users who are serious book readers (like me) end up using the Kindle app to buy books.
not surprised. people buy kindles to buy books. people don’t buy iPads to buy books – they buy iPads to buy apps.
+1
Oh right, well this is easy to explain. The problem with iBookstore is they sell only in USA, and other people get ugly Project Gutenberg ‘ebooks’. Kindle sells Worldwide. Good luck with taking over the world, Apple.
http://dear-apple.com/tagged/Kindle/chrono
I buy lots of programming books and am really disappointed with the offering from iBooks in the UK. I was really excited aboutbeingable to carry lots of technical documentation in a device that weighed less than many of the books I regularly refer to.
Search for programming in the UK iBooks store returns 10 results,most of which are written in French.
Carrying out the same search on kindle store returns about 8990 results.
Which store do you think is more suitable for my needs?
Obvious choice really, but I do wish Amazon integrated their store into the iPad kindle reader – jumping out to the website feels a little clunky. But I guess this is probably a requirement that is enforced by Apple.
Maybe at some point in the future Apple will be facing anti-competitive lawsuits. In the meantime the fact that I can buy more titles on the Kindle store has me considering a Kindle reader purchase even though I have an iPad.
I don’t think every Apple product is great. Better know the real stat Steve.
Test
I suspect the figures for J.A. Konrath may not be representative of the whole. J.A. Konrath has spent a lot of time marketing himself to the Kindle e-book community and acting as a champion for lower e-book prices – establishing a strong following among those Kindle users who have been seeking a cheaper e-book alternative. This is an author whose name I recognize instantly after frequenting Kindle forums and keeping up with e-book blogs for a while – but I had never heard of him before I bought my Kindle. I suspect he is well exposed to the Kindle audience, but the iPad/iBookstore e-reading following has not yet had time to become familiar with him. Thus, an author who is equally as well exposed to Kindle and iPad audiences may see a different ratio. The Kindle store probably still will do better in most instances, but whether it does this much better cannot be judged from the results of this author.
Will iPad made a comeback or will they start focusing less on the iBookstore and more on apps that people are using?
I have an iPad and most of the time I buy books for the Kindle or Nook apps, so these stats are kind of useless. Both Apple and Amazom are winners as far as I’m concerned. Does Nook not factor in here at all? :-)
iBooks come last for me just because I can only check what books are available through the iPad. With Kindle and Nook I can browse for books while I’m at a computer (esp if I’m at work) and send samples to the iPad to look at later.
Vonda Z above is correct, Kornath sells better on kindle because he established himself early on as an inexpensive alternative for kindle users. Your headline is inaccurate and misleading – as it suggests Kornrath’s market share reflects the overall market share. Using exactly your logic, another ‘journalist’ might write the headline “Apple Ipad book Aps outselling kindle ebooks” and base that claim on sales of the highly interactive and successful “Alice for Ipad” Ap compared to a kindle edition of the same story. If you’re going to report market share, you ought to make some effort to understand it.
I was wondering if anyone tried downloading books off of Google Books… they offer full view of some of the older books but I was wondering if Kindle is able to download those as well??
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