Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

[ Please bear with me on this post - although I've been thinking about it for weeks I'm still not sure I've explained it as well as I would like] Blogs and the internet have taken up so much mindshare that we’re missing one really important detail – people are still buying books. A lot of books. I looked at the AAP’s statistics and this is the snapshot for 2007 -

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has today released its annual estimate of total book sales in the United States. The report, which uses data from the Bureau of the Census as well as sales data from eighty-one publishers inclusive of all major book publishing media market holders, estimates that U.S. publishers had net sales of $25 billion in 2007; a 3.2 percent increase from 2006 with a compound growth rate of 2.5 percent per year since 2002.

In case you’re curious, audio books and ebooks accounted for 285 million dollars (just 67 or so million for ebooks). 

Why would you bring YouTube into this discussion?

YouTube did two things (and when i say youtube i mean internet video sites in general) – firstly, it let users share videos easily and extremely importantly share it with the whole wide world. Secondly, YouTube let people pick what they wanted – a type of survival of the fittest/funniest/most entertaining that no one really fully understands.

Now lets talk about the book industry – what the people get to see and read is controlled by publishers and by criteria that are based off of money and financial considerations. Basically, things that hopefully are not the driving principles for the best authors and artists.

What would bring real democracy to books and books lovers would be two things

1. A way for anyone to publish a book, including physically, and publish it to the world, and if possible to certain groups of ‘book early adopters’. 
2. A way for rapid (and i do mean rapid) dissemination of feedback and word of mouth. And then let people get the book quickly and easily.

It is implied that all of this ought to be very cheap since financial restrictions would rule out far too much of the world’s population. Basically the process of getting the book to ‘early adopters’ of the books industry and then letting them create buzz if warranted should be as easy as possible. And also a system to get books in the hands of people quickly and easily, and if possible cheaply.

Aren’t there already social networks based around books?

Yes of course. However they do not let you create books. They are helping the current state of affairs and its not their fault since they can’t influence what gets published. What is game changing are two parallel things - the First is that Amazon Kindle owners form a near ideal group to pick the best books out of contenders. Bear with me as I walk you through exactly what I mean -

1. The Kindle provides (at worst) a relatively large group of early adopters who read voraciously, are very knowledgeable about books, and most importantly love books and the arts of writing and reading. A long time ago I’d read about someone who had a woman on a bus come over and hand him a copy of the Exorcist and insist that he must read it. That is what I’m talking about.
2. At best Kindle Owners become a big enough market in themselves. However, even if there were zero additional Kindle sales, there are already enough Kindle Owners to warrant a mini YouTube, except with the added benefit that these will be people much more literate and intelligent than the average youtube and myspace user. I am not being elitist – this is just reality. 

Secondly, with Amazon letting anyone and their mother publish books and list it on amazon you suddenty get a huge audience. That 25 billion figure for book sales was just for the US. So you have three steps

1. Write a masterpiece or something merely extremely entertaining.
2. Publish it on Amazon and get the Kindle readers and social book networks a shot at it.
3. Get to see where you stand – are you really the next great author? Get feedback and become the next great author.  

You might think that this is already available – however it isn’t really. Getting your book on Amazon is a HUGE deal. If you do even a little investigation into the intricacies of getting shelf space at supermarkets and stores you’ll understand what I mean. Th second thing which no one seems to be getting is that the internet is great for blogs i.e. byte sized updates of information. People don’t really read full length books on their laptops and PCS. The Big Difference is that Kindle Owners will actually read your book on the Kindle. I’ve never seen anyone spring out a laptop on the tube (i’m in london) or a bus and read a book. Loads of people do read paper books though. Loads of people, if they owned a kindle, would read books on the Kindle. Also, there is very little ADD on a Kindle. And most importantly, you can reach a selective market …

The Long Tail of Publishing

As if this horse isn’t flogged to death yet – however, this really is the long tail of publishing. I can think of at least one topic I could write a book on that at least a few hundred people would love and benefit tremendously from. And you could probably think of a few yourself. Now – the opportunity is right there. Your memoirs? A book about the biggest lessons you’ve learnt? A book of poems for someone you love?  … and you can share it with anyone. And you know that it’ll be the people you really want to reach – the people who are in it for the art and the book. You no longer have to go through the trap of ‘we can only publish the book if it has a reasonable chance of being successful’. And when people come to Amazon they will be searching for topics that they are really interested in – I’ve literally spent hours threading through my favourite topics (for example psychology) trying to find a really good book. Would I go through Amazon’s user published books – Yes. It takes a lot more effort to create a book than a video. So anyone who’s written a book is either delusional or took a pretty good shot at it. The first chapter previews from Amazon on the Kindle help with this.

Alright, Perhaps there’s some point to this – So who has the best shot at becoming YourBooks aka the next big internet 18 month 1.65 billion site?

And here it gets really exciting – it could be You. You can reach kindle owners easily – there are a few free forums, and a lot of blogs. If you’re so inclined partnerships with Amazon are not out of the Question. And of course the kindle has internet access – so all you need to do is optimize a website for Kindle Owners and/or Book Lovers.

Using the Kindle as the backbone i.e. the distribution and testing channel for early adopters, you can test a book based social network aimed at finding the best authors and the best books and see if it sticks.

This is a really, really big market that is just beginning to manifest. Even with Amazon taking 65%, your share is insanely high compared to what a traditional publisher would give you. There was a reason that book publishers were up in arms against Google Books. However the Kindle allows for the war to be fought at a level that is even more unsettling for publishers. You can use Amazon’s Kindle and the publishing and the shelf space on Amazon.com to create your own publishing network. And you have – amongst Kindle owners, online book groups, and book social networks – arguably an incomparable early adopter/feedback group.

There are a lot of established authors like Coelho giving out their books for free. Coelho had a 2000% sales surge in Russia when free copies of his books got out on the internet there. These are some really smart, well established authors who realize something very fundamental – some people will read a bit online and then buy a book, some will becomes loyal readers, and some will just read for free – however, you will get way way more people to take a look at what you have to offer.

Oh – one small detail – Amazon gets 65%, you get 35%. However as compared to YouTube where Google is still figuring out how to monetize, this is a revenue stream that is already working very well. People are already buying a lot of Kindles and buying books from the Kindle Store. If you become a hit in the Kindle’s user publishing revolution, you can be assured it will be for more than just the thrill of showing up on the ‘most viewed today’ page.

Filed under: kindle