- Originally posted February 25, 2010 – © Kindle Nation Daily 2010 (Scroll down for the fine print!)
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Some pundits who pay only occasional attention to ebook pricing have been trying to make the case lately that Amazon could soon see its plus-90% ebook market share sink like a stone because of the high prices that Steve Jobs and the big traditional publishers are forcing on the Kindle Store.
Not so much, at least not yet.
With all the talk about the Apple 5, the so-called “Agency Model,” and rising ebook prices, it might be easy to miss the fact of the matter, which is that, as of this morning, 209,000 of the 447,000 titles in the Kindle Store are priced under five bucks. That’s 46.7% of the total, and here’s a breakdown by price points. To fine tune your search, click on any of these links and use Amazon’s search terms in the left sidebar column to select for category or genre, average customer review, or “new release” status.
- 19,795 Kindle Books Priced “Free” (4.42%)
- 3,023 Titles Priced from a Penny to 98 Cents (0.67%)
- 36,370 Kindle Books Priced at 99 Cents (8.12%)
- 62,275 Kindle Books Priced from $1 to $2.99 (13.9%)
- 87,722 Kindle Books Priced from $3 to $4.99 (19.58%)
What are the counts at higher price points? Interestingly, there’s a lot less going on the various “bestseller” price points than one might expect, including a grand but paltry total of 3.23% of all Kindle books currently priced between $10 and $14.99. But do not fear! Steve Jobs is coming!
- 81,230 Titles Priced from $5 to $9.98 (18.13%)
- 55,269 Titles Priced at $9.99 (12.34%)
5,139 Titles Priced from $10 to $12.99 (1.15%)
- 9,331 Titles Priced from $13 to $14.99 (2.08%)
- 87,771 Titles Priced at $15 and Up (19.59%)
What’s up with 20% of the titles priced at $15 and over? Not that much. None of those 87,771 titles are currently among the top 175 bestsellers in the Kindle Store, and some of those that are doing best are actually multi-volume sets. For single-volume books priced above $15 in the Kindle Store, a comparison of their sales rankings in hardcover and ebook formats suggest that Kindle owners are staying away from them in droves.