I recently read a couple of articles discussing the idea that the Kindle Fire has dipped into the sales of its e-ink counterparts, the Kindle and Kindle Touch. more
Well sure, this shouldn’t be too surprising, but there are other factors to consider as well.
First off, e-book prices have gone way up in the past year. Bestsellers used to be capped at $9.99. At that price, they were well below hardcovers, so I bought them all the time. Now they can be as high as $14.99. You can have a cheap e-reader to boot, but e-books with that high of a price makes the e-reader’s cheap price (almost) useless. I say almost because there are other options such as library lending, free or reduced priced books, or Kindle Daily Deals.
With the Kindle Fire, there are so many other options to choose from, which makes reading just one small component of what the device can do. You can surf the web, play games, watch videos, and the list goes on…
Another thing is that we’re in that usual slow first quarter sales slump that is sandwiched between the holiday rush and the slew of new product releases that start showing up in the spring.
Speaking of new product releases in relation to the e-ink Kindle. I will be interested to see if the rumored color e-ink is in the cards for the next e-ink Kindle refresh. If this does come to be, then it will give the e-ink models a much needed jump start.
I love my Kindle Touch. It is extremely portable, and allows me to enlarge the font to a comfortable size. But I have been using it less and less because of the rising e-book prices. I hope that one day soon, my local library will carry more bestsellers for the Kindle, and I also hope that a deal can be worked out to make e-book prices more reasonable.
By producing the Kindle Fire, Amazon has shown that it is willing to move out of the realm of traditional e-readers to compete in the tablet market. This ability to innovate will be key to their success in the long run in terms of future e-readers and tablets.
“I hope that one day soon, my local library will carry more bestsellers for the Kindle, and I also hope that a deal can be worked out to make e-book prices more reasonable.”
Given that Random House has just tripled the prices for libraries, and other major publishers have severe restrictions or prohibit libraries from lending their ebooks, I think the library situation is going to get worse, not better.
I don’t think ebook prices will come down. Even if the publishers settle with the Department of Justice, there are legal methods of maintaining the current prices.