Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

With eReaders and eBooks we’re in the midst of a lot of battles of perception. You could make a pretty strong argument that the Book Wars have turned into the Perception Wars.

Publishers trying to convince us that their work is worth 70% of profits. General purpose device makers trying to convince us that their devices are actually eReaders.

The Perception Wars and the Biggest Misconception being propagated

Perhaps the biggest misconception being propagated is that a user who may or may not read a book a year on their iPhone/iPad is just as valuable to the future of books as a dedicated book buying and reading customer.

There are exceptions – People who read a book a week on their iPhone and feel that they alone turn the iPhone into a more important device for reading than dedicated eReaders. However, for every iPhone owner who reads a book a week there are multiple eReader owners who read 4-5 books a week.

More importantly – The vast majority of eReader owners read a book a week or more. They also buy a book every few weeks or more. Meanwhile, most iPhone owners buy 1 or less books a year.  

Perhaps most importantly – Dedicated eReaders influence people to read more. They allow people who wish they had more time to read to actually read more. Multi-purpose devices, on the other hand, take people who would like to read more and usually get them to read less.

Different Readers have different value

It’s probably not politically correct to say that a reader who buys a book a year is less important than one who buys a book a week. However, its true. If we stay stuck in Political Correctness the books industry is going to die out because we’ll end up catering to non-readers.

It’s easy to be tempted by 50 million iPhone owners who might conceivably be talked into reading a book a year. However, if it comes at the cost of the 5 million eReader owners who read (not to mention buy) 20-100 books a year it makes zero sense - It’s not worth giving up a guaranteed 100 to 200 million sales a year for the mere possibility of 50 million sales a year.

It’s also crucial to keep physical book buyers in mind – who still account for 90% or so of the $23.8 billion a year of book sales in the US.

Basically, whether you like it or not (and whether you agree or not) it’s the people buying books who are propping up the entire book industry and they are the physical book buyers and the eReader owners. It’s about time we stopped chasing the illusion that people who aren’t even willing to buy a device dedicated to reading are as important or more important than these two crucial groups of people.

Three Categories of Book Buyers

Morphing the Pareto Principle into a 70-20-10 principle we get three categories of Book buyers -

1. The Top 10% who account for 70% of the profits. 
2. The Next 20% who account for 20% of profits.
3. The 70% who account for 10% of profits.

No one in the 70% is going to admit they have less of a right to decide the direction of books than the Top 10% – but they aren’t voting with their wallets and quite frankly that’s the only thing that’s going to let books and reading survive.

The ‘Next 20%’ are even more interesting. Since they mostly see the remaining 70% they are usually under the misconception that they are keeping the books industry alive. They are important but not as important as they think and for completely different reasons from what they think.

That leaves us with the Top 10%. 

The Crucial Top 10%

These people are the bread and butter of the books industry and as long as they are well taken care of books and reading will be fine.

Amazon with the Kindle is going after these people and it has already wrapped up a significant portion (probably a quarter). These are people who really, really don’t want anything other than a reading device. In fact, you could make a strong argument that anyone who thinks a device should do more than just read is unlikely to be in this top 10%.

Barnes & Noble must have realized this – There’s no other reason for them to make such a Herculean effort with the Nook and risk their entire company.

Basically, dedicated eReader companies really are going after the Top 10% that sustain books. It’s not some sort of ‘sour grapes’ and it’s definitely not a marketing gimmick. Amazon and Barnes & Noble have invested a lot into devices that are not only great for reading and dedicated to it - they are absolutely horrendous for anything other than reading.

Keeping the Top 10% intact

It becomes rather difficult to keep this group alive and kicking if the only thing we have for reading ebooks are devices that are specialized for other things. While multi-purpose devices can make non-readers buy a book once in a while they also tend to take young readers and turn them into non-readers.

Authors and Publishers should be glad that we have eReader companies investing in devices dedicated to reading. There’s an entire new generation of dedicated readers growing up on these devices. Kids who can read every classic in the world – for free and at the font size they like.  

These are devices that let children with an interest in reading go all out. They let families share books and read them at the same time.

The other demographic that’s being turned into Top 10% readers is people who weren’t able to get away from the dopamine addled distraction of Internet and TV. Suddenly they get a device that lets them focus on reading. They can read easily and conveniently - without having to invest 45 minutes to go to a store. It’s also a device that lets them read more, read anywhere, and read any book they feel like.

That’s two very, very important groups of readers being groomed to not only replenish but also expand the ranks of the Top 10%.

The Important 20%

These are the promising prospects. The ones that you can get into hardcore reading will become part of the Top 10%. The ones you can’t slip into the unimportant 70%. A few people stay in this state forever.

They are important as they do buy books. However, they are also important for their potential and the possibility that they will, one day, become part of the Top 10% that, through its purchases, powers books and reading.

The illusion is that multi-purpose devices will take the bottom 70% and turn them into the Important 20%. The truth is that these devices are more likely to take the Important 20% and destroy them and create a not-very-important 90%.

Sony and Barnes & Noble are trying to get as many of these readers as they can. So are the smaller eReader companies. The modus operandi is to offer a seemingly amazing value proposition – a low-priced eReader, lots of free public domain books. You can almost sense what these eReader companies think - the Important 20% care about reading but not enough to pony up a lot of money. They may or may not be right.

Apple is also trying to get these readers – It’s simply offering the iPad as a device that might be as good for reading as eReaders. If you don’t value reading as much as the Top 10% then you may buy the illusion. After all – Shouldn’t a device do more than just read?

If they go with Apple or another tablet they’re likely to move down to the not-important 70%. If they go with a dedicated eReader they’re likely to grow into the Top 10% – unless of course they just don’t have the inclination or ability to buy books.

There is, of course, a magical segment that buys and reads a book every day on their iPhone/iPad. Well, we’ll factor them in once their prodigious buying start translating into more than 1 or 2 book downloads a month.    

The Nice to Have 70%

What’s the point?

You put in a lot of effort and you convince these people to buy a book and then instead of a book every 2 years they buy a book every year. It isn’t even worth it.

There are lots and lots of people who want to read more. People who are already willing and able and who Publishers and current bookstores aren’t serving well enough. Why not focus on them?

Instead of trying to convince people who don’t read and don’t want to read that they should read more why not focus on people who already want to read?

The problem is that the numbers are so overwhelming - Billion plus people with cellphones, 100 million people with iDevices, hundreds of millions of English-speaking people with PCs.

A bird in hand is worth two in the bush – but is it worth 20? Well, it is if those 20 don’t read books and probably never will.

We have to tune out the 70%

This is where it gets pretty politically incorrect.

Why are we supposed to care about people who don’t read? Why are we supposed to even listen to people who don’t really read?

As far as books and readers are concerned these people don’t really matter. They think if they stop buying their 1 book a year the sky is going to fall on our heads – But it isn’t.

People who don’t read feel entitled to tell us what kind of devices we should read on, how much we should read, and what the future of books should be (with games and movies embedded in them?). You’ve got to be kidding.

Most of the people crowing about how eReaders are going to die contribute no part of the $23.8 billion a year books generate. These are the same people who pirate books and pretend some moral superiority when authors expect to get paid -

“Information should be free.” They say.

“You should be glad to have people read your book”.

Well, readers have a message too – Stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.

Two opposing approaches to growing the book market

Fundamentally, there are main two approaches being attempted at the moment -

1. Amazon are trying to make things easy for the Top 10% and get them to read more. Amazon and B&N and Sony are also trying to get some portion of the Next 20% to turn into Top 10% readers. To take young kids and people who’d like to read more and let them develop a love of reading.
2. At the same time we have a bunch of multi-purpose devices and Publishers pushing the notion that the non-important 70% are the future of reading.

However, look carefully and you realize the latter is just an attempt to pretend to grow the book market. Publishers only want to encourage other devices to be able to run their Divide and Conquer strategy and get back their power. Multi-purpose device Companies care nothing about reading and only want to sell more devices.

It’s basically a grand delusion/collusion – That people who don’t read are the future of reading.

We wouldn’t even care – it’s just that the Top 10% and the Next 20% are being affected. The Top 10% ought to dictate the future of books – it’s our money after all. The Next 20% should be encouraged to join the ranks of the Top 10% – based on free will and a love for reading. Not tricked into buying a device they think will help them read more when it isn’t even meant for reading.

Fundamentally, the Top 10% ought to decide. Pretty much everything about the future of books. Companies should be presenting options and platforms and devices and letting the Top 10% vote with their wallets.

The Next 20% are important to add-on a further 20% of book revenue. They also are important as building blocks for future Top 10% generations. However, they shouldn’t have a say disproportionate to what they spend and contribute.

Everyone else doesn’t matter. It’s just the Top 10% and the Next 20%. Non readers need to stay out of reading and books. We don’t want them telling us how to read and what to read and what to read on.

Filed under: books Tagged: | future of books