Munsey’s Technosnarl

Page 4 of Seeking Alpha:

Jeffrey Bezos

We don’t really breakout those digital figures. What I can tell you on kindle is that we’re not releasing the number of units of kindle that we’ve sold, the number of devices, what we have said is that we are, if you look at the universe of titles where we saw the kindle version, so those 140,000 different titles, the percentage of all-in units that in kindle unit form versus their physical book equivalent for that same universe is low double-digits at this point, which we’re very excited about.

Now, you could say the Sony .epub thing was timed to coincide with a possible release of Kindle #s, and this nervous revelation gives all you really need to know about where the two devices stand, sales-wise.  But, unlike Jon Noring, who has moved on to find something else for other people to do, I myself have an actual legitimate business reason to care about .epub, so… post-NY, I’ll pipeline or the other on Munsey’s second server.

Amazon shrugs off high gas prices, weak economy
Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Amazon suspects increased fuel prices may give it a “relative advantage” over other retailers.

“Even just driving 10 miles these days is a few dollars worth of gasoline,” he said during a conference call with analysts. “And consumers, we suspect, are beginning to take that into account and try to do trip consolidation. So our free shipping offers and Amazon Prime are clearly of even more value to customers under that set of circumstances.”

There are a couple people with margin concerns, but the stock’s up $6 overnight.  I wouldn’t expect Amazon to be too forthcoming with Kindle #s…

A few tricksy things with it… so somebody tell David White not to print the book yet.

I’m out of here.

So I’m moving all the music from a dead PC, and I note the iTunes App Store is now listing the most popular downloads–both free and commercial.  My other question, namely why Fictionwise would do PR on the Ereader Iphone App a week after the thing launched, was also answered.

For the curious, as of right now, Ereader is the 80th most popular download in the “Top Free Apps” category.  Lexcycle’s Stanza is 84th… probably there’s some cross-over among the downloads.

That’s a screenshot of part of the 5th quintile. The most popular free apps are things like AIM, Facebook, Weatherbug, game called Tap Tap, and a program that’ll make noises like a lightsaber if you swing your phone around.

This is not to say that Touch and iPhone owners don’t like ebooks.  A standalone Shakespeare was ~50th, and after multiple requests from readers, I’ve offered Lexcycle all of Munsey’s mobi-formatted titles for inclusion in their library.  The offer stands even after Lexcycle, Isilo-like, begins selling the next version.

But given that the former eReader was installed on Palm devices from 2000 or whatever on, and nobody really ever made money with eReader, to ask publishers to plan their books around software that the vast majority of Apple users ain’t taking… well, that’s a business model so convoluted only an idiot would get cocky about its implementation and likelihood of success.

Aside, folks making reference guides might be better off following the LonelyPlanet model and selling direct into the App store.

Limited ebook rations will continue for another week, but hopefully I’ll have a new scan Wednesday.

New site, Vendor Central, now allowing folks to see their Mobi sales histories.  Not real-time yet, but they’re clearly working on it.  Been a few bugs.

Actually, between this, the “leaked” Kindle 2.0s, the new Video-on-Demand service, and other things, I do get the vibe that Amazon is prepping folks for an earnings miss next Wednesday.

It’s really not their fault.  As the online retailer, shippers of everything, Amazon last quarter had a Sichuan quake, $4 gas–and I know from personal experience in the wake of last month’s Midwestern floods I was being quoted $9.30 to UPS a 5-ounce paperback from New Jersey to Delaware (but free desk copies can only go UPS, otherwise the faculty will never get it and hate you!)

If it’s a major miss, you’ll probably see other announcements, like the additional rail-linked fulfillment warehouses closer to population centers to save on fuel, and, who knows?  Kindle numbers…

/No position, but my Kindle store sales are, ahem, up.
//And no matter how bad the quarter, Mr. Bezos will not have to give up his rocketship, and things should stabilize a bit by Christmas.

Then a longer trip next week. Wasn’t my idea, but, there’s like some books I’m going to take with me, and, like, following today’s mail, I only have one copy that’s going with me to the meeting I can’t cancel.

There are two people supposed to be shipping things now, so, well, I’m starting to get the feeling that on Sorcerer I’ll just have to deal with a few obstacles other publishers don’t face.

On the plus side, I get to skip back on the Jewish bus, so Dusty won’t suffer, and, next week, there was enough of a deal on a room that I’ve now achieved one of life’s objectives:

Confirmed Reservation - Hotel Chelsea

to me

show details 4:36 PM (4 hours ago)

Reply

Thank you for sending your credit card details to confirm your reservation at Hotel Chelsea. Please print this email as your reservation confirmation and proforma receipt for your booking.

Pretty sure they don’t have sleep number beds…

Better lodgings.

Man, what a knock-off.

Orwell called it “a header into the cesspool.”

I must print this book now.

That’s like a real guy.

With real software experience.

And, like, Start-up cred.

Plus, judging by the name, dude’s part French, so there’s that…

As an aside, following the tragic passing of our translator on June 6th, we at Disruptive Publishing haven’t even had time to yell at the Indians, let alone do a mass batch script, but there are now two ways to go XHTML 2 Epub server side.

Don’t really care, of course. I mean, even before Palm blew through that billion, sales of ebooks on dedicated readers always outshined sales to the much larger “gadget economy,” but the O’s have as expected dropped out of contention in a rebuilding year, and an executive decision was just made to F’ it and enlarged photo-reprint the other two books Silk’s gonna feature this fall (after J’in P’ing Mei, Tang Downfall, and of course Mr. Sturman’s epic), so there might be time to play…

Happy Bastille Day to all the folks at Lexcycle.

On the road again in a bit.  Looks like the Ereader store is up and working fine now… we’ll see if maybe Mobi’s in the Itunes App store by week’s end.

Noticing the Ereader to Iphone thing, I’ll mention in passing that HTML2PML sorta works for English-language books, and in conjunction with Makebook could produce results, but for foreign languages, err:

FIXME(Egrave)

FIXME(aacute)

FIXME(euml)

(more steps are needed…)