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The E-Book Reader Market Is Entering A New Phase
E-books and e-book readers have been hot gadgets for quite some time now. In 2009, the e-book reader market really took off, and one of the major influences in this was the launch of Amazon’s Kindle.0 in February of that year. Amazon followed up with the large format Kindle DX in the summer of 2009 and, in the second half of the year, it seemed that electronics manufacturers were queuing up to launch their own e-book readers and get a share of the hot new market. The fact that practically every new reader which displayed any potential was immediately christened the “Kindle Killer” should give some idea of just how influential Amazon was to the market’s development. The Kindle reader was, very definitely, the industry standard that required to be matched and then beaten.
However, there was nothing to suggest that any new reader which would offer serious competition to the Kindle was anywhere in sight. It wasn’t until the launch of the Apple iPad – a very different device – that there was any serious threat to the Kindle’s dominance. Even then, the death of the Kindle as a result of consumers turning to the iPad just doesn’t seem to have materialised. Shortly after the release of the upgraded third generation Kindle in August 2010 Amazon, for the umpteenth time it seems, had sold out of the devices and prospective customers faced a wait of several weeks before their new readers could be shipped.
Certainly, the high sales figures of the upgraded Kindles were driven, to a certain extent, by a price cut. Amazon introduced a new Wi-Fi only Kindle for just $ 139 for customers who didn’t have any need for 3G connectivity. If you remember that the Kindle 2.0 was selling for $ 359 at its February 2009 launch, that’s a very significant price reduction. It moves the Kindle – and e-book readers in general – much closer to the sub $ 100 impulse buying zone for personal electronic devices. It’s debatable whether or not the iPad’s release prompted this. The price reduction would have happened anyway, but there is still a lot of scope for further price cuts – and probably in the not too distant future.
Amazon and Apple may be enjoying a good deal of success, but the same cannot be said for other e-book reader manufacturers. A number of planned e-book readers have either been delayed or completely cancelled. The Plastic Logic Que reader, for example, is pretty well dead in the water. The Dutch company Irex, an apparently well established business, went bankrupt after US sales of their Irex reader failed to meet expectations. Sprint and Hearst’s planned Skiff has been cancelled.
Are we heading towards a polarised market with Amazon dominating the low cost “pure” e-book reader sector and Apple cleaning up in the more expensive tablet computer that sometimes serves as an e-book reader market? There’s a large gap in the prices of the Kindle and the iPad. Is there sufficient space between the two devices, in terms of both specification and price levels, to allow new players to enter the market?
Recently Amazon confirmed that sales of Kindle books are outstripping the sales of hard cover books. It seems highly probable that e-book sales will catch up with and eventually overtake paperback sales – and probably in the not too distant future. It seems certain that e-books are going to be an important part in the future of reading, but just what type of device will you use to read them on?
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Might The Success Of The Kindle Tempt Amazon To Develop More Gadgets?
Amazon is enjoying great success with its latest third generation Kindle reader right now. An upgrade – which includes a new display with 50% better contrast, a new smaller and lighter body, quicker page turns and a doubling of memory capacity from 2GB to 4GB – accompanied by a price cut and the introduction of an entry level Wi-Fi only model, has seen demand for the Kindle reader really take off.
At the moment, the third generation Kindles are sold out and potential customers face a wait of three to four weeks before any new ones start shipping. Kindle books are also outselling traditional hardback editions on a regular basis. It seems to be just a matter of time before e-book sales will higher than even paperback sales.
Amazon has also launched a dedicated UK Kindle store so that UK customers no longer need to have their Kindles shipped across the Atlantic and can pay for their Kindle purchases in their local currency. It seems reasonable to assume that similar “local” Kindle stores will be opened for other Amazon international websites such as France, Japan, Germany etc. in the relatively near future.
Currently, everything in the garden is rosy for Amazon. Suggestions that the launch of the Apple iPad would spell the death of the Kindle seem to be, for the moment at least, unfounded. The Amazon policy of releasing free “apps” which allow Kindle books to be read on a wide variety of different devices seems to be paying dividends. So, considering what a massive success they have enjoyed with their first manufactured product, it’s hardly surprising that Amazon is rumored to be considering developing prototypes for personal tech gadgets other than the Kindle in their Lab 126 research facility.
Whilst Amazon has remained silent on the subject, speculation that they may be thinking about music/movie players and possibly some kind of mobile phone is rife. However, industry watchers suggest that, if Amazon wanted to enter the market with another gadget, then they would need to ensure that they add value rather than simply releasing another piece of personal electronic tech onto the market.
A great deal of the success of the Kindle reader must be attributed to Amazon’s strong association with books and reading in general. The massive choice of Kindle books on offer – more than 630,000 and increasing every day – and the fact that these can be read on so many other devices has been a real feather in Amazon’s cap. Any new gadget that Amazon decided to launch would probably need some similar type of support in order to achieve anything approaching the level of success enjoyed by the Kindle.
Check out the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
What Is The Influence Of Amazon On The Sale Of E-Books?
The recent growth in the popularity of e-books and e-book readers has been influenced very heavily by Amazon. The Amazon Kindle reader first hit the market in November of 2006 and subsequent updates followed with the launch of the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 and the release of the upgraded third generation Kindle in August 2010. The summer of 2009 also saw the launch of the large format Kindle DX, which 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 launch of the third generation Kindle – accompanied by a reduction in the retail price – Amazon has sold out of their readers again. Demand seems to be holding up, and then some, for what is now Amazon’s best selling item.
Some people have accepted e-books quite readily. Others seem to remain attached to traditional physical books. However, for the majority of people the convenience of being able to carry large quantities of reading material around with them, coupled with the ease of operation offered by e-book readers, has turned out to be an attractive proposition. Recent e-book reader price cuts, prompted or at least hastened by the launch of the iPad, have made e-book readers more attractive to many consumers.
Amazon recently advised that they are now selling more Kindle books than traditional hardback editions. As e-books use no paper or ink and have no delivery fees, they tend to sell at lower prices, which certainly helps. It can’t be too much longer until 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 under a minute, whatever the time of day, just as long as they can connect to the Amazon Kindle store.
A possible area of concern for some customers was the worry that they would be “tied” to one 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. Currently, Kindle books can be read on the Mac, the PC, the iPhone, the iPad, the Blackberry smart phone and any device which uses the Android operating system. It’s a clever move on Amazon’s part. Not only does it remove the fear of being tied to a particular brand of hardware but each new app acts as a separate retail outlet for Amazon’s huge selection of Kindle books. At the moment, around about 20% of all Kindle book sales are estimated to be aimed at non-Kindle hardware.
All things considered, it looks like e-books are here to stay and that they will gradually account for a higher and higher percentage of book sales. It also looks likely that Amazon will remain as one of the driving forces in the digital publishing arena for some time to come.
Find out more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Amazon Launches Its Third Generation Kindle Reader
It’s been a long time coming – or at least that’s how it feels – but Amazon has finally unveiled its new, upgraded and enhanced Kindle electronic reader. Christened the third generation Kindle by Amazon – but more likely to be known as the Kindle 3 – there are a variety of improvements.
The latest enhancements on display in the Kindle 3 seem likely to appeal to most e-book reader fans. It keeps the same 6″ e-ink technology screen, but the display’s contrast has been improved by 50%, which should make reading even better. The speed of page turns, already good for the Kindle 2.0, has been made 20% quicker.
The overall size of the reader has been shrunk by 21% and the weight is now only 8.7 ozs – a 15% reduction. Battery life is now a month – with the Wi-Fi turned off – and even with the Wi-Fi on, a life of ten days is predicted. Memory has been doubled to 4 GB, enough for approximately 3,500 books. The new Kindle is lighter, smaller, has a better display, a longer battery life and lets users to take a small personal library with them when they are out and about. What more could you want from a mobile reader?
For many, a color screen might have been one item on their wish list. However, whilst Amazon have been working on a color e-ink technology display, it simply isn’t ready for commercial release at this time. Perhaps this might be incorporated in the next Kindle 4 release. There is no SD slot available for memory expansion – a feature which some users may have hoped for. Nevertheless, considering that the memory capacity is now at 4GB, most people won’t suffer too much as a consequence of this.
In addition to the various upgrades, Amazon have adjusted the price downwards and introduced a new Wi-Fi only model for those who don’t anticipate the need for a 3G connection. Just $ 139 will get you the new entry level Wi-Fi only model, with the 3G plus Wi-Fi version on sale at $ 189. The new Kindle 3 now comes in graphite, the same as the new DX model, as well as the original white.
Amazon has also opened a dedicated UK Kindle store on their British website. UK customers will no longer need to get their Kindles shipped from the States. To begin with the UK Kindle store will have 400,000 Kindle books available. It seems reasonable to suppose that Amazon may consider opening other dedicated Kindle stores for its other “local” websites in France, Germany etc. in the future.
Sales of the Kindle 3 are high. Prospective customers face a wait of around about 4 weeks before their readers are shipped at the moment. It does begin to look as if reports of the Kindle’s demise, as a result of the launch of Apple’s iPad, were somewhat premature. The latest upgrades, the reduced prices and the fact that there is no monthly connection charge, will appeal to many potential customers. It looks as though the launch of the third generation Kindle may serve as a timely reminder of just how influential Amazon are, and will continue to be, in the world of e-books and digital publishing in general.
Learn more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Amazon Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Hardbacks
The launch of the Apple iPad may have had an impact on the sales of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader – but reports of its death seem to be somewhat premature. After a further round of price cuts – followed by the release of the third generation Kindle, demand has been so high that Amazon have – not for the first time – sold out of the 6″ display model. New supplies are on order, but it’s estimated that new Kindles won’t start being shipped to customers for at least another four weeks. The DX – also updated – is still available, for the time being at least.
The latest Kindle upgrade sees a reduction in the physical size of the unit (whilst the display size remains the same), a reduction in weight (the new readers are 15% lighter) and faster page turns. Storage capacity is also increased with enough memory to store up to 3,500 Kindle books now included. A new high contrast display and a battery life of up to one month, means that the latest Kindle is ideal for reading on the go.
The Kindle now comes in a choice of graphite or white and both Wi-Fi and 3G are included in the standard ($189) unit. A cheaper ($139) version of the reader is also available with no 3G – just Wi-Fi.
Amazon is also selling the new Kindle direct from some of its international websites. UK residents will be able to buy direct from Amazon UK rather than having their readers shipped from the USA. A dedicated Kindle book store will be set up for UK consumers. 3G connectivity in the UK will be supplied by Vodafone.
Just recently, Amazon confirmed that sales of Kindle books were outstripping hardback edition sales. Over the course of July 2010, Amazon sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 conventional hard cover editions. Amazon seems to be very confident that digital books are the future – and based upon these figures it does seem likely. The reading public does seem to have adopted e-book readers quite rapidly.
E-book reader prices have fallen dramatically in the last few months. The 3G Kindle is now available for just $ 189, well below the $ 359 launch price of February 2009. The Wi-Fi only version is currently selling for just $ 139. Whilst these price cuts may have been hastened by the iPad’s launch, the hardware price was always going to fall – and it may yet fall further.
Amazon enjoys a significant advantage over many of its competitors who are mainly hardware manufacturers due to its huge library of Kindle books. It’s hard to see this changing any time soon which could give Amazon an important edge as the market matures with a greater emphasis being placed on profits from the sale of e-books rather than profits from the sale of e-book reader hardware.
Discover the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you customise your reader.
Amazon’s Kindle Strategy – It’s All About Books
Since its launch in November 2007, the Kindle electronic book reader has been a great product for Amazon. Amazon’s strong association with both books and electronics was a marriage made in heaven and the Kindle, after an upgrade to Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 followed by the introduction of the large display Kindle DX model in the summer of the same year, went on to become Amazon’s top selling product.
The Kindle became Amazon’s most gifted item ever over the 2009 festive season – and, on Christmas day of the same year, Kindle book downloads outnumbered orders for physical books for the first time ever. This was probably due to those people who were lucky enough to receive a Kindle as a gift trying it out – and a lot of the downloads would have been free – but it was still a landmark event for both Amazon and the Kindle.
Despite the huge success of the Kindle reader, there were times when Amazon appeared to be a somewhat reluctant manufacturer. They went to a great deal of trouble to make sure that Kindle books could be read on a wide variety of different devices by people who didn’t own Kindles. Currently there are free Kindle “Apps” for the PC, the Mac, the iPod Touch, the iPhone, the new iPad, the Blackberry and any device running Android. At times, Amazon looked to be in competition with itself.
However, the reasoning behind Amazon’s open policy became clear with the release of the Apple iPad. Among its many features, the iPad can be used to read e-books, and the price of e-book readers went into free fall as Apple enthusiasts rushed to get their hands on Apple’s new device. However, even as e-book reader prices were plummeting, the average price of the e-books for use with them was climbing.
The main reason behind this was the deal which Apple had negotiated with the big publishing houses prior to the iPad’s launch. This allowed publishers to fix the price for the e-book versions of their publications at whatever level they wished – just so long as the e-book wasn’t offered at a lower price for any other reader – the Kindle for example. Amazon’s strategy of selling all e-books for $ 9.99 or less was pretty well destroyed overnight – and it started to look as if the iPad was not only a “Kindle Killer” but was going to mess up Amazon’s plans for e-book sales into the bargain.
A more considered analysis of the situation reveals that Amazon’s release of Kindle Apps for so many different devices was nothing short of inspired. Each App is actually an outlet for Kindle books – and with a higher average e-book price, Amazon will be able to sell Kindles for less but still make money over the lifetime of the reader by selling their Kindle books at higher prices. Even if the iPad were to wipe out Kindle sales completely – an unlikely event – Kindle books will continue to sell. And if another reader or tablet computer comes along there will, no doubt, be an “app for that” as well.
Discover the Kindle reader for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Pick The Right E-Book Reader And Save Money
E-book readers are very popular these days. A lot of the credit for that must go to the Amazon Kindle of course – but there are plenty of other e-book readers to choose from today. However, even with the greatly increased number of readers available, the Kindle is still the leader of the pack – by a long way.
The e-book reader market – in its commercial format at least – is still very new. This sector may be growing extremely quickly, but it is still in nascent form and in its developmental phase. For example, there is no agreed industry wide standard for the formatting of e-books. Many of the new e-book readers seem to be adopting the ePub format. Amazon’s Kindle has its own proprietary format for Kindle books – and it has attracted a fair bit of criticism for this in the past.
In theory, an industry standard e-book format would allow books to be ported from one e-book reader to another. It would also allow customers more choice when buying e-books. More buying options and a greater degree of choice should be good for customers and tend to produce lower prices. You see the logic.
Amazon, with their proprietary Kindle format, can justifiably point to their long pedigree of offering their customers excellent value for money in the field of reading – hardback, paperback or e-book. Their stated strategy of selling Kindle books for $9.99 or less, has resulted in some uncomfortable negotiations with some of the major book publishing houses are trying to defend their profits from the sale of hardback books.
A study carried out recently by the New York Times, looked at the average price per book for the Kindle, Nook, and Sony e-book readers. Ten books from the Times best books list of 2009 were selected – five non-fiction and five fiction titles. The price to buy these for each reader was calculated and an average price per book worked out. The Kindle was cheapest with an average price of $13.69. The Sony Daily Edition reader came second with an average of $15.26 per book. The Nook reader was in third place with a rather pricey average of $19.29 per book.
Little evidence of Amazon using their market leading position to profiteer in those numbers. In fact, if you read a book a week then, based on these prices, you would save $300 a year by choosing a Kindle instead of the Nook. Your Kindle reader would pay for itself in 12 months and you would still have a few dollars left over to buy books with.
It’s difficult to imagine that the Amazon Kindle will wind up as the Betamax of the e-book world. Fans of Sony’s daily edition can take that any way they like. It seems likely that, for the moment at least, the main discussion that needs to take place is between the major publishers and e-book retailers. Only when all involved are agreed that the world of reading and publishing has changed will it be appropriate to agree on industry standards.
Find out more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Behind The Technology Of The Amazon Kindle
There are plenty of reviews on Amazon’s Kindle reader available right now. It’s way ahead of the other e-book readers available right now, and is very much the “must have” gadget of the moment. Most reviews concentrate on the Kindle’s technical aspects, which is quite understandable. It’s a piece of high tech personal electronics after all. Even so, a brief look at the actual user experience with the Kindle might not be a bad idea.
First of all, a very quick look at the spec. The Kindle 2.0 has a ticket price of $ 259. It’s approximately the size of the average paperback and about as thick as a glossy magazine. It weighs a little over 10 ounces and has enough memory to store approximately 1500 books. One of its key features is its e-ink technology display. This produces less eye strain than reading on a PC screen – and has a much lower power requirement.
My first impression, when I got my Kindle a few weeks ago, was that the button positioning wasn’t right. There are two buttons on the left hand side – “prev page” and “next page”. There are a further two buttons on the right hand side – “home” and “next page” (again). At first I thought that one of the “next page” buttons was redundant. I thought that the left hand one wasn’t required.
However, after using the Kindle reader for just a few minutes, it made perfect sense. Sitting propped up in bed, on a crowded bus, in the metro or drinking coffee in Starbucks, it’s ideal. You can easily hold the Kindle in one hand and leaf through the pages, forwards or back, using your thumb. As a matter of fact, it’s much easier to use than a real book.
Before I bought my Kindle, I had tried a display model e-book reader in my local bookstore. I must confess, I didn’t really like the way the page refreshed. Once again, after using the Kindle for just a few minutes, I didn’t even notice this anymore. It’s exactly like flipping the page in a “normal” paper book for me now.
When it comes to the actual reading experience itself, the e-ink display is fantastic. The background is a light grey instead of the traditional white or cream of paper – but you get used to this very quickly. Compared to reading on a back-lit PC monitor, it produces a lot less eye strain. All I can say is that, whenever I’m reading a good book on the Kindle, I’m totally oblivious to the fact that I’m using it rather than reading a conventional book.
The low power requirement of the e-ink display is another big bonus. Although I read a fair amount of books, I find that the Kindle will usually go for around three weeks between charges – that’s with the wireless turned off. I usually turn the wireless connection on only when I’m buying books – which is a very simple process. In fact, it might be just a little too easy – I am very definitely guilty of a few impulse buys. According to Amazon’s official product description, books will download in less than a minute. From my own experience I would say that it’s way less than this. Of course, this isn’t a big deal really – but think about how annoying it can be when you PC takes an extra thirty seconds or so to boot up one day and you’ll get the point. It’s just another positive aspect to the overall user experience.
Just to try to give you some idea of what a pleasurable experience reading on the Kindle is, a few days ago I got an e-mail from Amazon to tell me that my order had shipped. I went to check it out as I knew that I hadn’t ordered anything. I found that it was a book by a favourite author of mine which I had pre-ordered some weeks ago and then forgotten about. Frankly, the thought of going back to manhandling a heavy book – even one written by one of my favourite authors – was less than appealing. Holding a book in my left hand and turning pages with my right seems like something out of the stone age to me now.
Find out more about the Amazon Kindle for yourself and view the wide range of Kindle accessories available to help you personalise your reader.
Growth In E-Book Reader Market Spells Good News For Independents
Electronic book readers have been available for quite some time now. The Franklin eBookman is generally considered to have been the first and launched in 1999, over a decade ago. Other readers slowly appeared – the Sony PRS launched in 2006 and the first Amazon Kindle hit the streets in November of 2007.
2009 was however, the year that e-book readers seemed to really catch the public imagination. A great deal of the credit for this must go to Amazon. The Kindle 2.0 launch in February, rapidly followed by the launch of the large format Kindle DX in June created a real buzz around e-book readers and established them as the “must have” gadget of the year. Very rapidly, the Kindle became Amazon’s best selling product. Over the 2009 festive period it became Amazon’s “most gifted” product ever. On Christmas day, Amazon sold more Kindle books than they did hardbacks and paperbacks combined. Both Barnes and Noble and Sony had launched new readers in advance of the 2009 Xmas rush – but concerns over delivery combined with the fact that the Kindle was already so well recognised meant that Amazon’s dominance continued.
There is no shortage of e-book readers to choose from right now. There is a long, and impressive list, of manufacturers who now have their readers on the market, or who are developing them for release in the very near future. Industry analysts are anticipating that 2010 will be a big year for e-book readers and the level of sales is expected to increase.
It is effectively a brand new market sector which didn’t exist, at least not in any meaningful way, until very recently. Apart from the companies who manufacture e-book readers, there are implications for publishers, educational institutions, independent suppliers and of course, the reading public.
The sudden creation of this sector has been very good news for companies like M-Edge, who supply a wide range of accessories for the Kindle, including reading lights, covers, chargers and such. There are many other suppliers of this type of accessory who also stand to profit. Currently, much of the focus is, quite understandably, on the Kindle reader. However, as the market expands and other readers establish themselves there will be further opportunities for the third party accessory suppliers.
The e-book reader market is still nascent. It is growing and developing at an incredible rate. Amazon has been instrumental in the development of the market to date and enjoys a 60% share of the American market as a result. Their dominance will be strongly challenged in 2010, as will Sony’s current second place (with a 35% market share). However, this new market offers plenty of opportunity for companies with the vision and innovative skills to establish themselves at this early stage.
Check out Amazon’s Kindle reader and learn how you can save money by downloading free Kindle books – right from Amazon’s website.
2010 – The Year Of The E-Book Reader
For the first time ever, the organisers of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), being held in Las Vegas, have set aside a dedicated area for e-book readers. Not without some justification – there are at least two dozen different companies showcasing e-book readers at the event.
The heightened level of interest, both from the public and from electronics manufacturers is perfectly understandable. After all, 2009 was a bumper year for e-book readers. All the signs are that 2010 could be even bigger.
A great deal of the credit for this must be given to Amazon’s Kindle reader. The Kindle 2.0 launch in February, followed by the launch of the larger DX in June, created a tidal wave of publicity for e-book readers as a whole and, of course, for the Kindle reader in particular.
The Kindle quickly went on to become Amazon’s number one selling product and, during the festive season of 2009, the Kindle became Amazon’s most gifted product ever. Sales of Kindle books made up 35% of all book sales (where a Kindle edition existed). On Christmas day 2009, for the first time ever, Amazon sold more Kindle books than traditional books.
The market for both e-book readers and e-books was well established and seemed set to take off. At this time, Amazon has 60% of the American market and Sony has 35%. Clearly there are plenty of other manufacturers who want a share of this new market. On the face of it, they will have a difficult time considering Amazon’s dominance – but the market is new and developing rapidly. Exponential growth seems probable in the short term and the right product at the right time could change everything overnight.
Neither are electronic hardware manufacturers the only businesses with a vested interest in the expansion and development of the e-book reader market. Third party manufacturers of various accessories – covers, chargers, clip on reading lights (e-book readers use e-ink technology displays, which are not back-lit), screen protectors etc. – also stand to gain from a brand new market that simply did not exist until very recently. Currently most of these accessories are aimed at the Kindle reader – but as other readers begin to emerge and increase in sales volume these will also be catered for.
2010 is going to be an important year for both e-book readers and e-books. Next year’s CES will almost certainly retain an area specially for e-book readers. It may be somewhat larger in size than that set aside in 2010 – and it will be interesting to see which manufacturers are participating in 2011.
Learn more about Amazon’s amazing Kindle reader – and don’t forget you can save a lot of money by getting free Kindle books – straight from the Amazon website.
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