In June, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said iBooks had already captured 22 percent of the e-book market, a gigantic number given that the store had just launched. Many were skeptical of Job's number, however.
TNW spoke with J.A. Konrath, a popular author who is a huge fan of the future of e-books, about how well sales are going for him, on both platforms.
Konrath publishes his books on Kindle himself, cutting out publishers that used to take most of his profits. By doing so, and selling his e-books at a very reasonable $3 a piece, Konrath is making over $2 per book sold. When his books were in paperback, he was lucky to make $0.80 for every $10 book sold.
The author compared sales from iBooks, the Kindle, and from paperback: "Publishers might be looking at enriched or enhanced ebooks as their new big-ticket items to replace hardcovers. But the major ebook retailer, Amazon, isn’t set up for video. Kindle isn’t even able to do color yet. That leaves Apple, and according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market. I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month."
Given an average 30-day month, that is 6000 books sold on the Kindle and just 100 through iBooks, a 60-to-1 ratio.
While this is just one author's figures, Job's 22 percent number seems to be misleading, at best.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Aug 2010 0:04
