The recent growth in the popularity of e-books and e-book readers has been heavily influenced by Amazon. The Amazon Kindle reader first appeared on the market in November of 2006 and further 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 large format Kindle DX was launched in the summer of 2009 and was also updated in August 2010.
A great many industry analysts suggested that, notwithstanding the influential role of Amazon in the development of the e-book reader market, the release of the Apple iPad would signal the demise of the Kindle reader. 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.
Some people have accepted e-books quite readily. Others seem to be attached to physical books. However, for the majority of people the ability 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 a winning combination. 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 confirmed that they are currently selling more Kindle books than conventional hard cover 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 seems reasonable to suppose that e-book sales will overtake paperback sales – and probably sooner rather than later.
Apart from the price, the ease of purchase of e-books is another driving 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 potential area of concern for many prospective customers was a reluctance to be “tied” to one particular brand of e-reader. Amazon seem to have overcome this rather nicely by releasing an absolute plethora of free “apps” which allows Kindle books to be read on a variety of different devices. 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 actually a clever strategy by Amazon. 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. Current figures suggest that around about 20% of all Kindle book sales are read on non-Kindle hardware.
It looks as if e-books are here for the long term and that they will gradually begin to account for a higher and higher proportion 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.