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| Hearsay: |
Basically everyone is freaking the fuck out and writing about nothing today other than Amazon’s announcement that ebook sales have overtaken hardcover sales on its site. But shrewd old Moby digs deeper than the press releases looking for some skepticism.
But of course, Amazon — as ever — offered absolutely no proof of its claims. As the WSJ report noted, “the statistics that Amazon shared were all relative—it didn’t share actual sales figures. The company has never said how many Kindle devices or e-books it has sold.”
Still, that didn’t stop some geniuses on Wall Street — you know, like those wonderful folks who brought us the Recession — from making influential forecasts based on no known reality: “That is dramatic evidence of how powerful the e-book is now,” Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney tells the WSJ, “…. and Amazon is extremely well positioned to take advantage of it.”
But not everyone in publishing is buying this as a death knell for print, or even necessarily the historic moment Jeff Bezos is claiming. Random House president Madeline McIntosh says, “Our conclusion is that there’s no data to prove any connection—good or bad—between growth in e-books and the growth or decline, in trade paperback sales.
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July 20th, 2010 at 10:07 am
Am I seeing conspiracies everywhere, or is it significant that Amazon compares hardcover sales to unspecified ebook sales? Does this vague release compare the sales for new releases in two possible formats, ebook or hardcover, or does it compare the sales of one format – hardcover, usually used for new releases, to ALL ebooks, new and old, being sold?
July 20th, 2010 at 11:17 am
And let us not forget paperbacks. How many people actually shell out the cash for a hardcover if the paperback is available for almost half the price?
July 20th, 2010 at 11:51 am
tolmsted: “And let us not forget paperbacks. How many people actually shell out the cash for a hardcover if the paperback is available for almost half the price?”
Not that many I suppose, but I’m guilty as charged. If there’s a book I truly covet, I’ll buy the hardcover. In fact, I’ll order the hardcover, if only the paperback version is in stock — especially if the paperback version sports a made-into-a-movie cover.
July 20th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I’m curious about whether they’re including books “sold” for $0.00 in their sales figures. In order to get those books, you hit the same “buy now” button, so if it’s measured by clicks on that button, well, Bob’s your uncle!
July 20th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Is Moby the only one smart enough to point out that Amazon hasn’t released ANY sales data to support their claim? Apparently so. Small wonder the financial markets took a nosedive low those many months ago.