July 11, 2008, 4:17 PM — In a report that surprises me a bit, Time Magazine is reporting that the Amazon Kindle has been a relative success so far and represents a fairly sizable portion of all book sales.
“On a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12 percent of sales for those titles...At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6 percent of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books,†the publication reported.
After reading through the report, I can’t help but wonder why Amazon is enjoying such success with the Kindle. Ostensibly, people are finding reason to buy a $360 device that allows you to read books, newspapers, and Wikipedia entries, but is it really necessary to pay that much for a device that lets you do exactly what your eyes do anyway?
I don’t get it.
Some people like to say that e-books are great because you can carry an entire library of books with you wherever you go, but that argument is ridiculous. Not only can you read just one book at a time, but how many people really need to carry thousands of books with them at all times?
Now, I’m not saying that e-books like the Kindle don’t offer any value, but I don’t see how anyone can justify spending that much money on a product that does so little.
Think of it this way: instead of buying the Kindle, you can head down to your local Barnes & Noble or surf over to Amazon.com and buy about 18 books for the price of the Kindle itself. And considering new releases will set you back another $10 per book, those same 18 books will add an additional $180 to the cost of entry. So when it’s all said and done, you’ll be paying $540 for the same result.
If you’re really into saving money, consider the fact that you can head down to your local library and loan all 18 of those books for the low, low cost of nothing.
That really puts the Kindle into perspective, doesn’t it?
The way I see it, the Kindle will provide the greatest benefit to college students who need to lug expensive textbooks around campus all year. But so far, the number of textbooks on the Kindle is practically zero and there’s no indication that textbook companies are willing to jump on the e-book bandwagon anytime soon.
At $360, the Amazon Kindle strikes me as a serious waste of money. If Amazon really wants to create a compelling product and reach critical mass, it needs to subsidize the cost of the Kindle and make it up on the books.
Then again, if it’s already coaxing suckers into buying this thing, maybe it doesn’t have to do anything.
Call me when the Kindle is free and I only need to buy the books. At that point, I’ll know e-books have arrived and the print business is in trouble. Until then, it’s nothing more than a niche product with a suspect future.
