Sometimes, a piece of information just doesn’t smell right. On Boxing Day this year, Amazon announced a couple of pieces of information in a release that got lots of coverage, in large part – I’d suggest – because over the holiday period, and there’s not a great deal of real news kicking around.
We were told that the Kindle is Amazon’s most “gifted”* item ever on Amazon.com. It’s worth noting that Amazon still doesn’t properly sell this device in the UK – in that you have to buy it from the US store and pay the applicable import taxes and so on.
Nonetheless, I’m sure that it is a popular gift. But of course it’s one device compared with literally millions of different book, CD or DVD titles that might otherwise be far more popular as gifts.
The release went on to say that: On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books.
So the dawn of the ebook age is finally here then?
Maybe. But I doubt it.
First of all, if somebody gave me a Kindle and I opened it on Christmas day, then there’s a very high probablility that I buy at least one book. Otherwise, it’s just a not-terribly-attractive paperweight.
On the other hand, most paper books exchanged need no activation or digital download. You can flick through them, or settle into them immediately. These will be many of the many 9.5m items that were shipped on just one day in December by Amazon.
It’s certainly true that many people will have been given vouchers of gift certificates for Christmas. But on Amazon those vouchers can be used for anything – not just books. And I wonder – early sales aside – how many transactions are carried out on Christmas day compared with days either side of that date? That information might put into perspective what kind of achievement was really reached with the Kindle.
I’m not the only person a little sceptical about this. There was a fascinating piece on a blog by Mike Cane. He’s more interested in finding out what the Kindle’s sales figures are. More importantly, an anonymous commentor says that the company he or she works for has seen just 1000 sales of their biggest selling title to date. That person’s information is corroborated by someone else also working for another US trade house.
There are also some interesting discussions about what a book “purchase” might mean for a Kindle. Many of the Amazon top 100 ebook titles are actually retailing for $0.00.
Now I don’t want dismiss either the Kindle or any ebook readers. I think they’ll be a relevant part of the book-reading world, and there’s still plenty of room for growth. For some ebook readers will become utterly invaluable. But we’ve not reached that point yet. And I’m pretty certain that whatever exciting tablet Apple is about to release isn’t going to make a great deal of difference either (for one thing, it’ll cost the earth compared to the flawed, but cheap Elonex e-reader that Waterstone’s has just started selling for £130). In that, I disagree to a small extent to John Naughton’s thoughts in yesterday’s otherwise very good Observer column.
So while Apple will come out with a much better thought out and designed device than anybody else, it won’t change the game. At least not unless it retails for under 200 quid (Data problems aside, iPhones have been great for phone retailers because they achieve strong margins on sales and have normalised 18 and 24-month contracts. How many unlocked iPhones are being sold?). And of course retailers will have to work with Apple’s iTunes store in terms of setting prices and agreeing terms.
Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that publishers like Simon & Schuster can’t even agree to releasing ebooks at the same time as hardbacks, instead settling on somewhere between the hardback and paperback release (odd – because they can set the price, and publicity tends to accompany paper releases).
So we’re still a few iterations from a really well designed and affordable ebook reader. And even then, in the same way that radio wasn’t killed off by television, and cinema was not put out to pasture by VHS, the printed book has plenty of positive attributes in its favour that will mean it remains an important part – indeed majority part – of the publishing ecology.
* How long has it been acceptable to use gift as a verb in this manner? While it can be a verb it’s dreadful English and I’m not happy with it. I don’t like “Gift Wrap” becoming the default for “Wrapping Paper” either. But that’s another matter.