E-Books Success – Can Amazon Kindle
Posted by Book Shopping Online in E-Books Success on November 26, 2010
In honor of Amazon.com’s Kindle let’s play a game and try to guess the forecast for ebook sales over the next few years.
In 2007 the ebook market is in the infancy stage. Despite Sony and Amazon.com both releasing consumer friendly devices ebooks have yet to gain widespread consumer acceptance.
Based on the reach which Amazon.com has in customer base, the proliferation of technology and the comfort of consumers purchasing electronics and virtual goods online – I forecast the sales of ebooks in 2008 will be $25 to $40 million. This is a small fraction of the overall publishing revenue per year as you can see below.
A few numbers of note (numbers are rough estimates):
2007 Literature Rate: 50%
US Population:300 Million
PC Penetration: 60+%
Itunes Downloads: 2.5 Billion
Amazon.com customer base 40+ million
# of books purchased per year – per consumer: 4
Publishing Industry revenues in 2006: $25 Billion
As we see electronics advancing the trend is convergence. The long term trend will no longer be for a separate gps, handheld, cell, mp3 player, etc – but for one unified device.
We can already see this happening with cell phones, organizers, cameras and mp3 players. As technology evolves this trend will only increase. This will result in a super-set of market size for any good or service that can be delivered to that device. Ebooks will be just such a product. In 10 years I see pocket sized devices that project onto any surface, that read and translate any text, are simple, powerful and consumer friendly. Based upon this the potential consumer (or market size) for ebooks will be in the range of 50 Million in the US, 400 Million Worldwide.
In technology the market is nearly always guided by innovators and then grown by imitators. The cutting edge innovators first create the product, unit or system in order for the innovators to make it affordable and bring it to mass production. This holds true for older products such as dvds, downloadable movies and music. From Beta video players to 8-tracks the innovation piqued curiosity in the marketplace, but little else. Until the imitators came along and created copies and more drove prices down.
The same will hold true in the e-book marketplace. As Amazon and Sony are on the cutting edge of innovation – others (like Microsoft) will sit back, watch customer reaction and learn.
At the right time the imitators will enter the market and bring volume of both product and consumers.
Let’s compare ebooks to the popular itunes – as itunes provides a near-as possible model (discounting the hardware device for ebooks which has yet to appear)
Examine the itunes sales for 5 years (again – estimates):
Itunes:
Year 1 = 70 million
Year 2 = 370 million
Year 3 = 602 million
Year 4 = 1.5 billion
Year 5 = 2.5 billion
As we can see – low volumes for the first year but nearly double each year after. I will concede that Apple’s ‘star’ power has helped itunes sell in such rapid pace.
Discounting that affect for ebooks (although it certainly a possibility.
2008: 40 Million
2009: 75 Million
2010: 135 Million
2011: 200 Million
2012: 350 Million
These figures are arrived by extrapolating the # of consumers who purchase books per year, as well as textbooks (which I predict will be the first large ebook market to hit critical mass). They are much lower then itunes volumes as you can see – as we’ve got a much lower base of consumer for books then for music.
Adoption of ebooks will be similar to music. The major difference in adoption really lies in the behaviour of the consumer. Music is vastly more popular of a medium then literature, and is much less ‘easier’ of a consumable. Meaning that consumers can make use of downloadable music in many different ways, while working, playing, in recreation and anywhere that the device follows. The consumption of music does not require dedicated attention as does literature. This creates a much tougher challenge for the adoption of ebooks – both in terms of device (hardware) and usage patterns. Music is rather indifferent to device, some may be stylish, others not – but all have the overall same delivery methodology. Until the innovators can find an acceptable delivery platform the volumes will not materialize. However, once the acceptable platform is found it will be imitated and the pattern will closely follow that of the music downloads.
The attitudes of digital content have changed dramatically in recent years. The Internet as we know it and worldwide web passed the 10 year maturity mark and has saturated through the population at a staggering rate. As this has happened the flow of information and data has followed and opened up opportunities and marketplaces which we could only dream. As the generation X’ers grew up into expendable incomes of their own they began to influence online purchases. These purchases are no longer limited to physical goods (ie . amazon.com) but now virtual services and goods such as movies, music and ebooks are common. Music content delivered electronically opened the floodgates and direct delivery of movies via electronic methods is now hitting its stride. As often occurs with new technology the old producers had difficulties (and still do) monetizing their product in a new delivery method. Early delivery methods were prone to theft and abuse. Ebooks have struggled to catch on to this new marketplace as no consumer friendly device has been introduced to satisfy the apparent need. There are many less consumers for electronic literature then movies and music, and whereas a movie or music can be delivered to a computer literature is not often read online. Attitudes have changed, but roadblocks still remain.
Hardware devices play the pivotal role in widespread adoption of ebooks. The critical hurdle which must be overcome is finding a consumer friendly hardware device which can be marketed to the masses. The Kindle (Amazon’s) is a leap forward on that front. The device addresses several important consumer concerns such as ease of use, ease of purchasing ebooks, readability, portability and battery life. The Kindle is an advanced ebook reader and Amazon is a true innovator. The major flaw (or hurdle) to the Kindle is the price-point, $399. At that price the average consumer will not jump into an unknown or unproven technology. The major advantage of the Kindle lies in the wireless ability to connect to the ebook marketplace and download fresh content. The benefit Amazon has given to the market is in innovation. The new device will test out the market and provide feedback to other device makers on what works, what is accepted by the consumer and what does not. The hidden benefit is in market awareness. Since Amazon is such a large public entity many have been exposed now to the Kindle (many more consumers then those exposed to the Sony ebook reader). Market awareness is raised for the ebook product itself and downloadable literature.
The flattened marketplace of our era has created many opportunities for businesses, products and sales. The ebook will reach out to educators and recreational consumers alike -given time, consumer acceptance and ever changing technology.
What is Libertarianism? A Book Review
Posted by Book Shopping Online in popular book on November 26, 2010
All of us in the United States have friends that are libertarians. After all, it appears that nearly 10 to 20% of our population during any given election call themselves libertarians. And this group of individuals often is the deciding factor in elections because they become the swing voters. But, if you are wondering what it is to be a libertarian, then I have a very good book that I like to recommend to you. The name of the book is;
“Libertarianism in One Lesson” by David Berglund, 1977
There was a book on Libertarianism which was translated in Polish and it caused a revolution in 1988 and 1989. 1990 communism was ousted in socialist nations collapsed due to the thought that “you own yourself.” Libertarians believe; “No one has the right to force you to do what is not in your best interests,” each person owns themselves – you cannot force others to do what is against their best interests. However, you must take responsibility for yourself.
There is a chapter on cooperation versus force in the book that is quite good. The book made me think about the possibility that perhaps, government could work as conglomerate franchised module in the service business for things like trash, power, enforcement, military, and dog catchers. I definitely enjoyed this quote; “If people are inherently good, you don’t need a government and if the people are evil you don’t dare have one,” and “Government is us and they are no more noble than the bureaucrats in it,” and since everyone in government comes from the population, if there are any problems, it’s already our fault.
In fact, the book was full of great quotes, here’s another one; “A government agency which falsely justifies actions against a citizen is not an acceptable government” in some ways one could say that Government is not real, it’s a lie we all agree to live by, a fictitious entity, worth nothing without our consent. How can you have a social contract when government legislators and regulators make onerous and restricting laws against freedom and liberty? We must respect the rights of all; there is no superior human being in our government. Anyway, I think you would enjoy the discussion that went on throughout this book, it will really make you think.
The 5 Best Reasons to Write a Book
Posted by Book Shopping Online in Write a Book on November 26, 2010
You have a book (or 3) inside you and if you haven’t started writing it yet then maybe it’s because you just haven’t found the right reason to start. There are as many ways and reasons to write a book as there are people and while I think my list is pretty good, feel free to disagree with it and state your own reasons.
1. Self Development
Have you ever gotten an idea in your head and couldn’t get past that idea until you wrote it down? What happened then? I’m willing to bet that you had a new idea that replaced the old one!
Thoughts and ideas are just another form of energy and energy flows best when it’s expressed. I often encourage journaling for exactly this reason, but for holistic healers, teachers and life coaches I encourage more directed writing. If you know enough about a topic to teach it then you know enough about it to write a book.
2. To spread your message
We all have a message. Take a moment and think about your practice and see if you can boil everything that you do down to one sentence. I’ll give a few examples based on my books and the work I do with them;
For The Spiritual Entrepreneur – My primary message is that you can use your business to generate multiple streams of passive income that will support the charities you care about; you don’t have to sacrifice to give.
For Awaken Your Inner Power! – You have the ability, right now, to tap into unlimited energy; all you have to do is get out of your own way.
For The Self Help Author – You have the ability to help people at a much greater level; here are the tools you need to make that happen.
As you’ll see, writing the book is just the tip of the iceberg, but for many people the book is the biggest step that they can see right now. My goal at this point is to make it as easy as possible to take that step.
3. To help those in your tribe
We all have our own tribe. Your tribe is the people who listen to you and benefit from your teachings, experience and hopefully, wisdom. The interesting fact is that you could take any of my books and not change one single word other than to put your name on the cover rather than mine, and there are people who would buy that book with you listed as the author who wouldn’t buy it from me.
Your tribe is waiting right now for you to show up and there are a few points that I want to make before we go farther with this;
· Your tribe doesn’t expect you to be perfect
· Your tribe will never present you with a problem that you can’t find the answer for
· Your tribe does not care about your level of education, your experience or any other hang-up you might have about getting in front of them!
· Your tribe, however large or small, will appreciate and benefit from what you can do right now
· As your abilities increase, so will the size of your tribe. If you only have 1 person show up to an event then give that 1 person 100% and I guarantee you that by the time of your next event your tribe will at least double. Did you ever have anyone ask whether you’d rather have a million dollars or a penny that doubles every day? Think about it.
I’ll cover all these points in greater detail as we go along, but for right now just realize that if you didn’t have everything you need to go forward then you wouldn’t be reading this.
4. To build credibility
Just having a book on Amazon.com can give you a greater level of credibility. In fact, there are some organizations that won’t allow you to be a speaker unless you have a book!
I remember how shocked I was about people’s reactions when I got my first book published. To me it wasn’t that big a deal because I had been so close to the project for so long that I had become used to it, but for everyone else it was a very huge event and for some of my friends it continues to be so.
According to some statistics that I recently saw, over 70% of the population would like to write a book, but only 4% actually do it. Think about that, from the moment your book shows up on Amazon.com you just fell into that 4% and that 70% of the population now see you as someone who’s done something they’d like to do. Never underestimate what that can mean.
Getting on Amazon.com is insanely easy, by the way. With a little know-how (and I have at least a little) you can get on Amazon in less than a week completely for free. Keep reading.
5. To develop passive income
I don’t write books to make money, but it’s a damned good side effect! I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and thinking about how cool it would be to develop some passive income.