Now if some of these companies would remove the software they have attached to their ebooks I would be able to check them out from my local library also! It seems that most ebook downloads from public libraries will not yet work on iPads or Kindles. Because a handful of holdouts will not take off the cookie that “returns” the book after a designated amount of time. How silly.

From USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-07-29-amazon29_VA_N.htm

On point 2, there goes that “Mission Accomplished” banner again. Let’s see, the Kindle launched in November 2007, making it all of 32 months old. HD-DVD was codified as a format in 2003 and was phased out in 2008, giving it a lifespan of 5 years. Plays For Sure hit the market in 2004 and was phased out in 2008, again, giving it longevity beyond that of the Kindle to date. I may very well be wrong on this subject but it’s still far too early to tell.

I do stand behind my prediction though–I think the future eBook market will follow the music market in that we’ll eventually see an end to the vast array of proprietary formats and DRM’ed silos. Kindle as a stand-alone format is likely doomed (just like HD-DVD), and Amazon’s DRM lock-in is also doomed in the long run (just like Plays For Sure). The Kindle Store is likely to thrive and Amazon will be a big player in the market, but that’s a separate issue. Are you suggesting that the market is going to accept DRM and silo-ing of content over the long haul?

I don’t believe I ever suggested Apple would disallow competing eBook readers in their App Store. If you can find it, I’ll admit I was wrong, but I don’t recall that being my thinking. What Apple has done is give themselves a selective advantage by allowing in-app purchasing for iBooks. The other bookstores make you leave the app and go to a browser (to avoid having to pay Apple’s 30% commission on sales). Where I was wrong was that so far, this doesn’t seem to matter to book buyers the way it matters to music buyers. For music buyers, the in-app low barrier purchasing is a big factor in iTunes dominance and Amazon’s weak second place finish. So far it doesn’t seem to be hurting the Kindle store, though I’m not sure if this is because the hurdle doesn’t matter to book buyers or because Apple has done such a lackluster job with their own iBookstore. Amazon’s “read anywhere” strategy is likely a big factor as well, as Apple’s eBooks can only be read on iPhones and iPads, limiting their potential market. Then again, Apple’s only been in the market for 3 months, so it’s far too early to declare winners and losers.

The Kindle App for the iPhone has been around since March 2009, and it’s been instrumental in the Kindle Store’s success. Once again, more factual backup for my assertion that multi-use devices are a bigger market and a more important focus than the niche occupied by single-use devices.

As for point 3, the question was whether the competition in the marketplace would improve the terms offered to publishers everywhere, and that certainly has happened as Amazon indeed did make their offer much better after Apple joined the fray. You’re right in that they aren’t offering the agency model to smaller publishers, but again, it’s likely only a matter of time. Their current deal is only applicable for a small fraction of the books we publish (science histories and the like that we can afford to price at $9.99 or less). For nearly our entire catalog, we’re not going to bother with the Kindle store because the terms don’t work for small-market high-value content like we publish for our specialized market. Can’t give you any comparison between Kindle and iBook sales as of yet as we’re not yet in the iBookstore, still going over the details. But they do offer price flexibility without a penalty. If your price exceeds $14.99, Apple does allow themselves the ability to not accept the book in the store if it so chooses, but if they allow it in (and a $240 print lab manual is likely to command a price beyond $14.99 as an eBook), then the same terms apply as with all other prices. This makes them a vastly preferable reseller compared to Amazon who drastically change the terms if the price exceeds $9.99. Whether they’ll be able to generate any significant revenue for us is, of course, another question that it’s too early to answer.

No one doubts that eBook sales numbers are growing rapidly. The problem is in declarations that they’ve already overtaken the market when in reality they’re still in single digits as far as % of sales go. It’s all a bit reminiscent of a recent president standing in front of a banner reading “Mission Accomplished”.

I wouldn’t paint myself as anti-eBook. My real (non-blogging) job is the transition of a long-running print book program into electronic modalities likely to prove more attractive to customers. I have been strongly critical of Amazon, particularly for their late night stealth book erasing debacle, their clumsy attempt to bully an industry and most often, I’ve suggested that single-function eReaders are at best a niche market. If you really believe that this press release marks a watershed moment, then that latter point is proven–it took the iPad, the iPhone and Android to make the market work, rather than the Kindle device. Had you said to me three years ago that when the Kindle software goes onto another company’s hugely popular device that sells more in 3 months than the Kindle sells in those 3 years, and when their software goes onto more than 100 million multi-use smart phones, then you’ll see 1.8 99 cent eBooks sold by Amazon for every 1.0 $25 hardcover, I’d likely have agreed that it was certainly possible.

You’re looking for reasons why Amazon should release some hard data. Here’s a few:
1) customer confidence: many customers are still likely sitting on the fence, afraid to buy a product that might turn out to be the betamax of eBooks. If Amazon has such overwhelming dominance of the market and can prove it, wouldn’t this help increase consumer confidence and increase sales?

2) publisher relations: Amazon wants to push publishers into doing business the way Amazon sees best. If they truly own this market, proof of that would give them much more power to get their way. Think of Steve Jobs’ stubborn refusal to budge when the iTunes store had no competition.

3) Apple’s stock price. Apple is fairly transparent with their sales numbers, and these releases prove how incredibly successful their devices have been, driving the company’s market cap through the roof. Do you think Bezos is deliberately trying to keep his company’s stock price down?

And if we’re keeping score on past predictions, one should note that all of this happened despite the agency model being in effect, which a certain someone predicted would lead to reduced demand (comment 3 here):

It’s certainly getting harder for those of us like myself in the agency-pricing skeptics camp to maintain that the price hikes reduced demand for e-books.

Or perhaps this prediction:

Macmillan and soon a couple of other of the big six have just renegotiated their own special deals. How exactly does this help your press? Not at all. It is not “directly beneficial” to your company because those terms don’t apply to your company

Those terms do, in fact, apply to my company, having read Apple’s iBookstore contract, as those are exactly what they’re offering.

We don’t know for sure why Amazon plays these games with its Kindle sales data. There are certainly valid competitive reasons for not disclosing sales while there’s also Steve Jobs’ theory that it’s to cover up for poor results. But it’s beside the point at this point.

One final addendum: I don’t quite know what to say about providing links to Publisher’s Lunch lobbing its twisted & illogical refutations from behind the safety of their paywall but it is annoying. The only bit on this Amazon release I’ve seen, excerpted on the open Gonzalez post, compared the number of James Patterson ebooks sold in the past three years (or less) to the number of James Patterson books sold in the past three plus decades worldwide. That’s worse than any of Bezos’ machinations.