I tend to agree with Mr. Wikert. The Kindle is too proprietary for the price. If you can *only* get your ebooks from Amazon in Kindle, you’re missing a lot of other ebooks from other sources. Of course, they have their conversion service and possible Mobi compatibility, but then add DRM on top of it and, well, no.

I personally spent $150-whatever for the eBookWise because it’s so dang versatile with regard to format AND reasonably priced to boot. I also got the eBook Librarian to do conversions of my own documents. Do I miss that I can’t buy ebooks from Amazon without a bunch of rigmarole? No. They’re not even a blip on my radar.

Keep at it Amazon. You almost have it right.

Btw, I don’t think Amazon has built Kindle just for the business reader, techies, etc., as you note. Amazon is definitely looking for the mass market…but they won’t get there with a $399 device. As prices come down you’ll no doubt see a broader adoption by the mass market, of course.

Do you know who is probably the most progressive epublisher in the market? Harlequin. They release every book, all 120-140 of them each month, in ebook format. I read somewhere that the sales of digital books for Harlequin has not yet reached even 1% but Harlequin seems to believe that the market for ebooks is not the early adopter but the voracious reader.

If the Kindle and thus, Amazon’s success, rests solely on the shoulders of business individuals, techies and the like, I don’t see it going mainstream.

Certainly that isn’t the market Harlequin is aiming for and it is not the market that makes epublishers like Samhain successful either.

Most of the folks I see jumping on the latest technology item don’t seem to fit the romance book audience. I don’t mean to speak in absolutes with this, btw, as there are definitely exceptions, but I think the typical technology early adopter is a very small percentage of the romance book buying crowd.

Without sounding too sexist, I see the people in line for the new gadgets and they’re typically men. (Again, there are plenty of exceptions but gadget freaks tend to be male.) On the other hand, it appears that the romance book buyer is typically female. (Once again, there are exceptions, of course.)

Does that help clarify things or have I dug an even deeper hole for myself?

Joe Wikert
Publishing 2020 Blog
http://www.joewikert.com

The lifeblood of the romance genre is exactly the person who shops for the $5.99 mass market paperback and that is exactly the type of person who will make the ereading market successful.

The bestselling books in the ebook market are not hardcovers in the non fiction, business area. They are romance books that sell for $7.99 and less.

I also doubt there’s a correlation between this discounting change and the release of the Kindle. Based on the $399 price point it’s clear Amazon is just trying to sell this product (initially) to early adopters who don’t mind paying a hefty premium. That doesn’t sound like the person shopping for a $5.99 mass paperback.

Amazon is pretty smart when it comes to discounts and programs like this. They never do anything arbitrary. My guess is they studied a *lot* of data before making this change. Further, if the results aren’t what they expect you can bet they’ll make additional tweaks to their discounting.

For the record, although I do *not* work at Amazon I *am* involved in the publishing industry.

Joe Wikert
Publishing 2020 Blog
http://www.joewikert.com

Amazon let’s you view your entire order history, but the info doesn’t include list vs. Amazon prices and out print books don’t contain pricing information when you look at them now. Still, I can tell which books were discounted because the cent amounts vary from the usual .95/.99 list prices.

My return to “brick and mortars” happened immediately after Amazon’s mass market discounts disappeared. Crown discounted all books in local stores then and BN and Waldenbooks often had competing paperback promotions.

It’s currently cheaper to use 20%-35% coupons at Borders, especially if one isn’t an Amazon Prime member or doesn’t want to use the free, slower shipping . I sometimes see Amazon mass market discounts for new releases in popular series or or the latest “it” book, but nothing otherwise.

I can tell you without a doubt that Amazon has never discounted mass market paperbacks.

I wish there was a way to go back and research this, but I’m … 90%? … sure you’re mistaken on this. A friend of mine – years ago – first told me about Amazon soon after they went online. He went on-and-on about how every book was discounted, and how they were operating at a loss to get repeat business.

I was still wary of shopping online back then (so we’re probably talking about pre-1997 or so, since I’ve been happily shopping online since around then), so I didn’t take advantage of my friend’s advice. And by the time I did, that MMPB discount was gone.

Once Amazon built up enough word-of-mouth and repeat business, it did away with discounting on MMPB. At least, that’s how I remember it. So I don’t think it’s never, but I do think it’s been a long time, since they’ve discounted MMPB.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed the lack of discounting (at Amazon or other stores) because I buy so few new books, but it’s something that’ll now be in my brain as I shop.

Thing with MMPBs is, Amazon doesn’t have that big inventory advantage–selections should be available at the grocery store, news stand, etc. I’d venture to say that MMPBs are the one area in books where Sprawlmart eats their lunch, and not worry too much if Amazon decides not to compete there.

I’m sure a lot of people on this list hate Walmart, think the inventory’s meager, have complaints about it, etc. I understand. But millions of people shop there every week, and some of them buy MMPBs, which for this particular market leaves Amazon and everyone else in the dust.

Too low-brow.

*G* I LOVE being low brow. It’s so much more entertaining.