Amazon Sells Many More Digital Books Than Hardcovers
It looks like Amazon's e-book strategy is paying off. CEO Jeff Bezos revealed Monday that, "even while our hardcover sales continue to grow," his company sold 180 Kindle edition books for every 100 hardcovers last month. That figure has accelerated since Amazon dropped the price of its best-selling product, the Kindle e-book reader, by $70.
It looks like Amazon’s e-book strategy is paying off. CEO Jeff Bezos revealed Monday that, “even while our hardcover sales continue to grow,” his company sold 180 Kindle edition books for every 100 hardcovers last month. That figure has accelerated since Amazon dropped the price of its best-selling product, the Kindle e-book reader, by $70.
Full press release here.
Clearly e-books are cheaper to produce and distribute than their physical cousins, but, as the Los Angeles Times points out, there is some skepticism about whether Amazon keeps e-book prices low to help Kindle sales:
“We don’t know the economics of these e-books,” said Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Financial. “In our opinion, they are losing money on a lot of the bestsellers sold as e-books.”
The site has about 630,000 e-books for sale, plus numerous titles that are available as free downloads. About 80% of the priced e-books go for $9.99 or less, according to the company, significantly lower than the approximate $25 average for hardbacks.
[…] The company is much more likely to be making a profit on sales of its Kindle device, he said, even with the price cut. “There’s one thing that we’re pretty certain on,” Gillis said. “They’re making a lot of money on the hardware.”
Amazon says it excluded free Kindle books from its sales comparisons.
Whatever Amazon’s motives, consumers clearly expect a discount when buying digital media. And why not? Digital books don’t have to be made from trees and inks, shipped half way around the world and moved from warehouse to store to home. Why shouldn’t the publisher pass on the savings to the consumer? — PZS
Your support is crucial...As we navigate an uncertain 2025, with a new administration questioning press freedoms, the risks are clear: our ability to report freely is under threat.
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to dig deeper, delivering fearless investigative reporting and analysis that exposes the reality beneath the headlines — without compromise.
Now is the time to take action. Stand with our courageous journalists. Donate today to protect a free press, uphold democracy and uncover the stories that need to be told.
Media
The shift comes amid a big tech repudiation of liberal policies in an apparent attempt to cater to the right.
Economic Justice
From union drives to fair taxes to consumer protection: A roundup of some of this year’s most inspiring wins.
Film
A new documentary goes inside the dramatic origins of the Amazon Labor Union — just in time for holiday shopping decisions.
TD Original
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an Indigenous water and land protector.
Technology
The IDF is using Amazon’s cloud service to store surveillance information on Gaza’s population and procuring AI tools from Google and Microsoft for military purposes.
Economic Justice
Two Christmas rushes ago, workers at this Amazon air cargo hub started to win improvements at work by relying on each other.
You need to be a supporter to comment.
There are currently no responses to this article.
Be the first to respond.