Has an eBook drawn blood against paper books?

Posted on 21 September 2009, at 8:30 pm, by Carly Z

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Gear Diary Lost Symbol

Way back in the spring, I posted about Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol” and its potential to be an e-book star. With eBook apps on smartphones, and Sony Readers and Kindles coming down in price, more people than ever can get their hot little hands on eBooks. And sure enough…

The Telegraph UK is reporting that the Kindle version of The Lost Symbol is OUTSELLING THE HARDCOVER.

Now, on one hand it’s downward price pressure; $9.99 is less than $16.17, AND you get instant gratification. But clearly lots of Kindle toting, iPhone using people are snapping it up at that price. And that’s just how well it is selling at Amazon. Fictionwise and Sony are selling the eBook as well, and Sony is matching Amazon’s $9.99 price.

Maybe Dan Brown will be the author to push ebooks to glory, maybe not…but he’s certainly giving them a boost! So did you buy “The Lost Symbol” in ebook form, hardcover, or at all? And if it’s not this book, what do you think will spark an ebook explosion?

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Tags | Amazon Kindle, Books and eBooks, Sony, WiFi and Wireless Gear

8 Comments For This Post

Judie Lipsett Says:
September 21st, 2009 at 9:16 pm
I bought “The Lost Symbol” via pre-order on Amazon for my Kindle. I am not surprised that it is outselling the hardback at all.
Dan Cohen Says:
September 21st, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Me too! Reading it now on my new Kindle DX!
alese Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 am
Well you guys are lucky.
I also wanted to pre-order the book a month ago from Fictionwise (no Kindle and Amazon E-books in Europe…) but when I was trying to pay, it gave me geographical restriction error, it seems that at least for my country (Slovenia) this book is off limits. I guess common EU market, globalization and free trade are just buzzwords.

I was stubborn, after the release I tried to buy the book again – with the same result – these publishing rights/deals are really annoying…
Carly Z Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 am
Sorry to hear that, Alese…

What about the Sony eBook store, and something like Calibre: http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/

I’ve never used Calibre, but my understanding is that it can convert an ebook to another format, so if you don’t have a Sony Reader you could try converting it to a fictionwise format and read it on your device of choice.
alese Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:03 am
Thanks for the tip. But I kinda doubt that Sony store would be much different than Fictionwise as far as selling the book to certain regions/countries goes. And I really don’t want to register to another online shop just to get one book.
I guess I’ll just have to wait for the book to be available.

Oh, and Calibre is a nice program, that can do all sort of conversions, it works fine and I use it to build my E-book library – something like an iTunes for books, with all the information in one place. I haven’t got far yet – too many other, more important things.
Larry Greenberg Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
I’m reading the hard cover version. It’s not as though I have a choice though since I sold my Kindle 2 to Clinton. But I like going “old school”. Maybe I’ll read by candlelight tonight.
Michael Anderson Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 am
Larry – while it is Kindle in terms of format, from what I’ve read they might as well call this the ‘iPhone / iPod Touch version for use with the Kindle Reader … also usable on the Kindle’.
Michael Anderson Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:00 am
… left out part …

The reason for what I said is that apparently more folks are buying it for non-Kindle use.