Mar 05 2010

The Kindle Shows The Way For The E-Book Market

Category: 1 — Alan Kingless @ 6:53 am

Considering the very strong link that Amazon have with books and reading, it\’s no surprise that the Amazon Kindle reader has proved itself to be a very good fit for Amazon\’s business model. During 2009, e-book readers really took off. Much of the credit for that must be given to the Amazon Kindle, both the Kindle 2 and the Kindle DX which attracted a lot of publicity and did a great deal of work to bring e-book readers to the public\’s attention.

The Kindle has become Amazon\’s top selling product. It has a 60% share of the USA\’s e-book reader market – Sony are in second place with approximately a 35% market share. Both Kindle models are now on sale in more than 100 countries around the world. There are a large number of new e-book readers from different manufacturers available on the market just now. Nevertheless, the Amazon Kindle remains the market leader by some way.

In a way, it\’s a compliment to Amazon that every new reader which shows any promise whatsoever is immediately christened the \”Kindle killer\”. Amazon has responded to the increased competition level by reducing the price of the Kindle 2 by $100 to $259. At the moment, the price of the DX model is unchanged, but the recent introduction of the Apple iPad may see Amazon revising this price also in the near future.

As well as developing the Kindle hardware and expanding into new markets, the choice of Kindle books available on the Amazon website continues to grow. At the moment there are more than 420,000 books to choose from, and this number is growing at an average rate of 500 titles every day.

Whereas Amazon\’s competitors are focusing strongly on the development of the hardware side of the e-book reader market, Amazon are making progress in a number of different areas. They are making price adjustments, producing firmware updates for the existing Kindle models, expanding the size of their market and continually increasing the number of Kindle books available for their customers to choose from. In short, they are taking full advantage of their market domination and also profiting from their very strong link to both books and reading.

It will be interesting to see what new developments are included when Amazon decide to release the next upgrade of the Kindle reader. This will give a very strong indication of the way that the e-book reader market is likely to develop in future. Different industry watchers are predicting various dates for the next Kindle update. Given that the Kindle 2 is now over a year old it is almost certain that this will take place in 2010. Some time during the third quarter of the year seems to be the most widely anticipated timeslot at the moment.

Discover the Amazon Kindle for yourself – and have a look at the wide range of Kindle accessories available to let you personalise and protect your reader.

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Mar 03 2010

A Guide To The Distribution Options For EBook Downloads

Category: eBooks — Alan Brady @ 12:18 am

The rise of eBooks (a.k.a. e-books, electronic books) online has been one of the great successes of the Internet as it has made it possible for all web users to become authors and publishers of their own work. To help the avid author/publisher, an industry has grown up surrounding the ways to publish your book to the internet. This article will detail the options available for publishing your book to the internet along with the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

The options each have control, security and cost implications. Some of these constraints can suit individual book author depending on the level of involvement they wish to have in the sales and download process.

Online Third Party Sellers

This is perhaps the most common scenario for selling e-books online. The author uploads their book to the vendor\’s website who then take control of the sales and marketing in return for a commission on each sale.

The vendor looks after processing payments and dealing with the credit card companies/Paypal. In general terms, the author is allowed to provide a book description or synopsis but they have no control over their book\’s marketing on the vendor\’s site so their book may appear on a page surrounded by competing advertisements or competing books.

When a book is purchased from the site, the vendors is responsible for controlling if the book\’s download link has a time limit or if the number of downloads attempts is restricted (to protect it from being downloaded by several people).

One disadvantage of using a third party vendor is that the author cannot compile a membership listing of previous purchasers so they miss out on the potential of future loyalty purchases. This could affect publishers who intend releasing several books and wish to build upon a customer base of previous customers.

Password Protecting Public Folders On A Server

This is an old approach to distributing eBooks whereby you make a public folder on your web server and configure it to be password protected. When a customer purchases a book via your site you send them details of the password and URL/folder for the download.

One advantage of this is that there is no cost involved, except for your time, but you will still require shopping cart software to manage the purchase.

One big disadvantage (and the reason this techniques is not used to any great extent these days) is that the security is weak since the password can be freely distributed with other people who could then freely download your book.

Digital Download Management Tools

This is the independent way of publishing e-books that involves installing software on your own server to manage the shopping cart process, download link security, compiling mailing list information and communicating with purchasers (emailing them the secure links to the e-book download).

In this scenario, the author can compile a mailing list of customers and has the freedom to configure how secure the download links are, including how long the links are to be made available for.

After the software cost, the only other cost is the commission to the credit card processor and the sole operational overhead is the application set-up and handling refunds.

In conclusion: Each of the options have benefits and constraints which specific types of authors will be drawn to/put off by. If you plan to sell multiple eBooks then choosing a Sales Management and Distribution Tool is the best option for retaining control over your book\’s marketing and mailing lists. If you only have one eBook to sell, don\’t wish to capture purchasers in a mailing list and want zero involvement in the set-up, marketing and sales of your eBook then using one of the many online vendors should work well for you.

Discover a simple way to sell ebooks – Read Alan\’s review of DLGuard, software for digital download sales management over at http://www.sellebooksandsoftwareonline.com.

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Nov 13 2009

Kindle Accessories Market Booming

Category: Computer — Andrew King @ 12:45 am

Amazon are not releasing precise sales figures for their Amazon Kindle e-book reader – nevertheless, there can be little doubt that they are very pleased with returns to date. Launched in November 2007, the original Kindle sold out in five and a half hours and then remained out of stock until April 2008.

The updated Kindle 2 was launched in February of 2009. It was widely regarded as an improvement on the original and was another huge success for Amazon. The larger format Kindle DX went on sale on June 10 2009 with a strong order demand based on pre-orders following its announcement in May.

By the middle of 2009 the Kindle, in its various forms, was the must have gadget and terms such as “the iPod of books” were being bandied about. In parallel with the development of their hardware, Amazon continued to grow the number of titles available for download to the Kindle from their webiste. Over 300,000 titles were available by early June of 2009 and the collection was growing by around about 500 titles each day.

Great business for Amazon and a huge encouragement for repeat custom. Of course, you can find suitable books for your kindle elsewhere – but they may need to be translated, and why go to all that bother when the Kindle store already contains plenty titles that you can download using 3G wireless connectivity in less than a minute?

Third party manufacturers – a rapidly growing side industry – also benefited hugely from Amazon’s success. The original Kindle had been shipped with its own cover – but with the release of the Kindle 2, amazon dropped the cover. Customers who had just paid $259 for their Kindle or $489 for their Kindle DX wouldn’t have thought twice about spending another few dollars on a protective cover for their nice new gadget. Like any other portable device it’s liable to see a few knocks and scrapes in everyday use, so it makes sense to protect it.

Apart from the practical considerations, it looks like many Kindle owners are quite willing to pay in excess of $100 for a custom leather cover – which will not only protect the device but make their high tech gadget look more like a conventional book. Most Kindle owners have some disposable income to hand, so it probably isn’t surprising that they are ready to pay to customise their reader.

There’s a wide variety of accessories for Kindle owners to choose from. Clip on lights, additional power chargers and metal reading stands are all popular. The popularity of the Kindle continues to grow and, as more models and variants are likely in future, it seem likley that independent suppliers will continue to cash in on Amazon’s success.

Want to find out more about the Amazon Kindle reader, then visit Andrew King’s site on how to choose the best Amazon Kindle accessories.

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Nov 06 2009

Intense Competition Predicted For E-Book Readers

Category: Hardware — Andrew King @ 3:52 pm

There are currently a large number of manufacturers competing in the relatively, but exponentially expanding, e-book reader market. The high competition level is a strong signal that high growth can be expected in this sector. Consumers can expect to benefit from the high level of competition as manufacturers compete to offer higher specifications and lower prices.

There is an impressive list of major players who all have e-book readers in various development stages of – and in some cases, about to be imminently released. Sony, Barnes and Noble, Plastic Logic, Asus, iRex, – and don’t forget Apple and Microsoft (as if) – are all lined up and fighting for their share of the market.

There’s no doubt about the present market leader. The Amazon Kindle reader has dominated the market, and has played a pivotal role in its development since its launch in November 2007. Now in its second iteration with the Kindle 2 and the large format Kindle DX, Amazon has gained a 60% share of the American e-book reader market. The Kindle reader is now Amazon’s number one product and, on October 19 2009 , after a long delay, Amazon started to ship the Kindle 2 international version to over 100 countries worldwide. In a way, it’s a backhanded compliment to Amazon that every new e-book reader in development which has any potential whatsoever, is immediately christened the “Kindle Killer”. Just at the moment, the Kindle is setting the standard which must be reached, and then improved upon, in order to ensure success.

If it seems as if the Kindle’s current number one position is verging on the unassailable, it’s worth bearing in mind that Amazon were a late entrant to the market when the Kindle was first released. The franklin eBookMan is generally considered to be the original dedicated e-book reader. This was launched in 1999 – a decade ago. The Sony PRS also hit the market in advance of the Kindle’s 2007 launch.

The Kindle was such a phenomenal success for Amazon due to a number of different factors. First of all, Amazon had a strong association with books, being among the largest online retailers. They also offered a huge choice of books to download – at the moment they have in excess of 300,000 titles on their Kindle store. The option of wireless connectivity – with no ongoing fees – was another big selling point.

However, in exactly the same way that Amazon came from nowhere to grab the top slot, any one of the other contenders could do the same – and faster than you might imagine. Barnes and Noble, for example, have more than one million titles available for their new Nook e-book reader. They also intend to use the ePub format – which most of the readers presntly under development seem to be going for. The Kindle e-book format is proprietary. Purchase a Kindle book – read it on your Kindle (or maybe on your iPhone – but certainly not on any other reader).

The Nook will also allow you to “lend” books to your friends and family for a fourteen day period. During this time, the borrower will be able to read it and the lender will no longer have access to it on their Nook – just like lending a “real” book in fact. The only difference is that you will be guaranteed to get it back.

The Sony Daily Edition – Sony’s next generation reader – will be a large display format, just like the Kindle DX. Unlike the DX it will feature touch screen controls. It will even permit users to “borrow” e-books from participating public libraries. Again – just the same as a real book.

In general, the readers in development incorporate features that could very well make them more appealing than the Kindle. Amazon definitely look to have a tough fight looming – but it seems certain that they won’t hand over their industry leader position without a struggle. Considering their innovative role in the development of the market to date, and bearing in mind the importance of the Kindle to their strategy, it seems logical to expect them to have a few new tricks ideas yet to be revealed.

At the end of the day, given the level of activity amongst all of the various manufacturers, it looks as if the e-book reader market is about to start growing even faster. Hopefully the rampant competition that seems about to be unleashed will force prices downwards and take e-book readers out of the high tech domain and into mainstream personal mobile tech market.

Find out all you need to know about the Amazon Kindle eBook Reader and learn how you can get 100% free Kindle books.

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