E-Books Are Becoming More Widely Accepted
August 17th, 2010Amazon have been very influential in the recent growth in popularity of both e-book readers and e-books. The Amazon Kindle reader first hit the market in November of 2006 and subsequent updates followed with the release of the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 and the August 2010 launch of the upgraded third generation Kindle. The large format Kindle DX was launched in the summer of 2009 and was also updated in August 2010.
Many business analysts forecast that, regardless of Amazon’s influential role in the development of the e-book and e-book reader market, the release of Apple’s iPad would effectively kill off the Kindle. However, after the third generation launch – accompanied by some price cuts – Amazon sold out of Kindles (yet again). It seems that consumer demand is still extremely high for Amazon’s top selling product.
E-books have been readily accepted by many readers. Others seem to be attached to physical books. However, for many people the convenience of being able to carry large quantities of books around with them, coupled with the ease of operation offered by e-book readers, has turned out to be an attractive proposition. Recent cuts in e-book reader prices, prompted by the release of the iPad, have made e-book readers a much more attractive option for many readers.
Amazon recently confirmed that they are currently selling more Kindle books than conventional hardback editions. The lower sales price of e-books – which use no paper or ink and have no delivery fees to speak of – certainly helps. It can’t be very much longer before e-books begin to sell more than paperbacks.
As well as the price, the ease with which e-books can be bought is another influencing factor. Readers can download a book to their Kindle in less than sixty seconds, at any time of the day or night, just as long as they can connect to Amazon’s Kindle store.
One possible stumbling block for many readers was a reticence to be “tied” to any particular e-book reader. Amazon appear to have tackled this issue very efficiently by making a host of of free “apps” which allow Kindle books to be read on a variety of different devices available. At the moment, Kindle books can be read on the PC, the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, the Blackberry smart phone and any device which runs the Android operating system. It’s a smart strategy from Amazon’s point of view. It not only removes customer’s concerns about being tied to one proprietary piece of hardware but every new app acts as a seperate point of sale for Amazon’s vast library of Kindle books. At the moment, around about 20% of all Kindle book sales are estimated to be aimed at non-Kindle hardware.
It appears that e-books are here for the long haul and that they will gradually begin to achieve an increasing proportion of overall book sales. It also seems probable that Amazon will continue to be a driving influence in the world of digital publishing in future.