Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

The selection of Kindle newspapers has really improved – There are now 100+ kindle newspapers in the Kindle Store (108 to be precise). You could look at the whole list of kindle newspapers or you could look at the lists below.

Breaking up Kindle Newspapers by Category

There are lots of ways of looking at newspapers in the Kindle Store -

Kindle Newspapers by Country

The USA leads the way with 61, Canada is next with 12, Spain and Brazil and UK have 6 each, India has 3, France and Germany and Japan have 2 each, 2 newspapers fall under the International category and there a whole slew of countries with a single newspaper – China, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Middle East, Portugal, and Russia.

Kindle Newspapers by Popularity

Ranked by popularity the top 10 newspapers are The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Economist (magazine? newspaper?), Financial Times (US Edition), The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Globe and Mail, Los Angeles Times, and The Times.

Kindle Owner Ratings

There are 25 newspapers rated 4 stars and above – FT, IHT, G, Chicago Tribune, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Hindustan Times, The Independent, National Post, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Irish Times, Star Tribune, The Arizona Republic, The International Herald Tribune (Asia Edition), El Mundo, Zero Hora, Les Echos, The Record, The Prague Post, The Philadelphia Daily News, Quad-City Times, The Spokesman-Review, Diarocritico, The Plain Dealer, Moscow Times, and Calgary Herald.

Price

There’s a dizzying range of prices -

1. One at $2.49 - We start with The Onion at $2.49 although that might not qualify.
2. Two at $3.99 - We then get Lewiston Tribune and The Prague Post at $3.99.
3. One at $4.49 - The Daily Progress at $4.49.
4. 28 at $5.59 - There’s a whole bunch of newspapers at $5.99 including The Oklahoman, Politico, and 26 others.
5. 22 at $6.99 - These include Naples Daily News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Abilene Reporter-News.
6. 1 at $8.99 – The Chicago Sun Times.  
7. 37 at $9.99 - The $10 newspapers include The Miami Herald, El Universal, and A Noticia.
8. 1 at $10.49 – The Economist all by itself. 
9. 2 at $11.99 –  The Washington Post and USA Today.
10. 1 at $13.99 – The New York Times.
11. 12 at $14.99 – The unreasonably priced newspapers include The Wall Street Journal, El Pais, and Le Monde.

It’s interesting to see the affinity for $5.59, $6.99, $9.99, and $14.99. It almost matches ebook pricing clusters (Ebooks do have additional clusters around $1 and $2.99 – the latter will become hugely important due to the 70% royalty minimum price).

The Gap between the Kindle Store and other Stores

We could probably guess that the Kindle Store has more newspapers than Sony and B&N - It’s worth figuring out exactly what the gap is.

Sony Store Newspaper Statistics

Sony proudly announced that they’ve added 20 newspapers and periodicals to the Sony Reader Store today. Let’s take a look at what the newspapers section of the Sony Store has to offer.

There are 18 total newspapers (listed in order of popularity) – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, All Things Digital, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Times, San Jose Mercury News, The Dallas Morning News, The Denver Post, MarketWatch Today, The Boston Globe, The Columbus Dispatch, The New York Observer, The Salt Lake Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun.

Looking at Prices in the Sony Store brings up an interesting pattern -

1. 1 at $1.99.  
2. 1 at $4.99.
3. 1 at $5.99.
4. 1 at $6.99.
5. 1 at $7.17.
6. 1 at $7.50. 
7. 7 at $9.99. 
8. 1 at $10.99
9. 1 at $12.95.
10. 1 at $13.99.
11. 2 at $14.99.

Just one cluster at $9.99 and everyone else is anti-social.

Finally, Sony Reader owners really like The Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, All Things Digital, Financial Times, The Washington Times, and Los Angeles Times – All of them get 4 stars or 5 stars. It’s worth mentioning that 9 of the 18 newspapers haven’t been rated yet.

B&N Store Newspaper Statistics

B&N clock in with 17 newspapers – The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, All Things Digital, The Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, The Dallas Morning News, The San Jose Mercury News, The Columbus Dispatch, The Star Tribune, The Washington Times, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Observer, The Salt Lake Tribune, and The Baltimore Sun.

The pricing for B&N newspapers -

1. 1 at $1.99. This is again All Things Digital.  
2. 5 at $5.99 – Including The Salt Lake Tribune.
3. 1 at $6.99.
4. 5 at $9.99 – Including The International Herald Tribune.
5. 1 at $11.99.
6. 1 at $12.99.
7. 1 at $13.99.
8. 2 at $14.99.

Interesting to see clusters at $5.99 and $9.99 and the beginnings of one at $14.99.

With the Kindle and the Nook stores you can buy a single issue of a newspaper.

Closing Note – There’s still a lot to be done

One possible reason for the huge lead of the Kindle is that newspaper companies just want to experiment with the market leader and wait for eReaders to be more popular before expanding to all ebook stores. Still – it’s obvious that there’s a lot of progress to be made. Sony and Nook are struggling, Kobo doesn’t even have a newspaper section (as far as my searching has shown), and even the Kindle Store’s 108 newspapers aren’t enough.

Luckily we’re seeing some good progress -

1. Entourage Edge just struck up a deal with PressDisplay who claim to have 1,500 newspapers in their arsenal.
2. Sony just partnered with LibreDigital and ought to be able to expand the Sony Store’s anemic range of newspapers.

Hopefully by the end of the year we have a thousand plus newspapers available in each of the 3-4 main ebook stores.

Filed under: kindle Tagged: | evolution of newspapers, kindle newspapers