Comments on: The Times it is a-changin’

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:29:11 +0000

I'd be interested in seeing what sites they include. Mobileread? Manybooks? Or just the big few? And Kristin asked about freebies... Will they exclude freebies at all? Will they exclude all freebies or only the public domain ones? What about books that were recently free, and are now paid?

Will indie books suddenly be doing well? And can they tell us the breakdown between stores? What about the breakdown between print and e? At least one recent book by Grisham apparently had around 30% of first-week sales in e-format recently. I'd love to know whether that was an anomaly or if that's happening regularly...

By: DGLM

DGLM — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:02:57 +0000

Good question, Kristin. I'm guessing they'll only track paid content--the word "bestSELLER" implies that the books are purchased. And they typically look at front list, not back list. But who knows how they'll run these lists! I'm eager to see.

-Michael

By: Kristin Laughtin

Kristin Laughtin — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:33:15 +0000

I'm curious about whether they'll track free or very cheap e-books, because that might slant the list toward a lot of older titles. I know a lot of people who will pick up tons of the free books on the Kindle simply because they can, even if those books are far from current. I know you can get a free e-book of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE for free on Amazon, and the complete works of Jane Austen for $0.99. Will such accessibility mean a lot of classics outsell more current books on the list?

By: DGLM

DGLM — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:38:37 +0000

I don't have any hard statistics on teens owning e-readers, Ara, but I can say that adult e-books proportionally outperform children's e-books at this point. Michael Cader in a recent piece indicated that while adult e-books make up 9.5% of total sales, children's e-books make up only 1.7% of total sales.

I'm eager to see how they break down the lists. It's an exciting time!

- Michael

By: Jan Markley

Jan Markley — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:21:50 +0000

That is really interesting. It will be interesting to watch what happens with the e-list!

By: Ara Burklund

Ara Burklund — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:25:45 +0000

I'm sure there'll be a lot of overlap on the lists, but yeah, I'm curious about what people are buying the most of electronically. Like will erotica be on the list? Category romance? Edgy teen fiction?

Speaking of which, I'm curious how many teens out there own e-readers. Any statistics available?

By: Kim Batchelor

Kim Batchelor — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:03:46 +0000

I saw this announcement in the Times earlier this week. I'm very interested in seeing what the owners of e-readers are buying, especially since I can't make them out when they're reading on the train.

And I'm putting my money on the bet that there will be more questions from Michael. Looking forward to them.