From Good Ereader:
The second generation Amazon Kindle Oasis has provided a financial windfall for E-Ink Holdings, the company that powers the e-paper display. E-Ink has reported that they have experienced a four year high for September. EIH September revenues reached NT$1.691 billion (US$56.03 million) for September, up 3.3% on month and 11.3% on year. Revenues for the third quarter of 2017 totaled NT$4.791 billion, up 29.8% on quarter and 7.8% on year.
Some of our regular readers might wonder why I report on the financial earnings of a singular e-paper company. E-Ink powers the screens of every single e-reader on the market, this includes the Icarus, Kindle, Kobo, Nook, and Onyx Boox. Pixel QI and Clearink are the only two other alternatives and are not being used in any e-readers on the market. Basically, by monitoring E-Ink you can get a sense on how many units are being sold and what type of worldwide demand there is for dedicated e-readers.
. . . .
I think one of the big reasons why people are buying more e-readers this year is because they have a reason to upgrade. The new Kindle Oasis is the first Amazon branded device that is waterproof and can listen to any audiobook from the Audible library. The Oasis also features a seven inch screen, which results in more real estate for e-books to be displayed. The Kobo Aura One is most successful product in many years and I think it is the best one they ever made. They pioneered the concept of a brand new lightning system has RGB colors and serious readers are enamoured with the ability to borrow and read digital content from public libraries that do business with Overdrive.
Link to the rest at Good Ereader
I understood the last half of that sentence (in the clip), but not the first half? Not the “lightning system” reference, either, that just gave me an amusing mental image. (Since you cannot avoid typos these days, you might as well enjoy the good ones…)
What does pioneering the “concept” of the lighting and having RGB colors have to do with their latest e-reader? So far as I know, everyone has those these days (even my cheap Fire from two years ago).
Hence, the growing desperation to recruit “YouTube stars” and “media celebrities” that come with a premade audience out of the box, instead of building long-term author careers.
Today authors build their own careers. Those waiting for someone else to do it have a long wait. They get to wait with all the other authors who really thought a publisher would build their career. It’s a fantasy.
Need to close at least one of your windows, Terrence…
One moment we hear eBook sales are plunging, the next minute we hear eReaders are surging. Both with statistics to back it up. I don’t know what to believe.
Well, my eBook sales were never down nor those of the writers I talk to so I wasn’t too worried about it. 😉
Obviously, people want just the e-readers, but not the e-books. Why clutter up those e-readers with something as inferior as e-books? Or could it be those e-readers are getting filled with self-published books???
Have to admit I don’t understand the appeal of the Oasis. I bought one and promptly returned it because it felt awkward in my hand. Also, the display wasn’t as good as the one on my Voyage. A couple days ago I saw pre-order product pages for the Oasis in its multiple versions. Very pricey. When I returned my older version, I read the low-star reviews to see if others shared the same dislikes I had (odd shape, weird balance, less than wonderful display), but it seemed poor battery performance was the main complaint — at that time anyway.
I have a tendency to shift my voyage from one hand to the other, and really wonder if having to flip the reader every time I do that would be awkward. I like my voyage.
LOL It took me a minute to get what you meant. That would be maddening.
I, too, love my Voyage. But I will admit to wishing for a waterproof version, particularly when I’m standing on an L platform in the snow and really want to keep reading.
I’ve heard of people using a gallon size ziplock to improvise a waterproof cover – but I haven’t tried it yet.
And I’m embarrassed to admit I hadn’t thought of that. Nor had it occurred to me to check Amazon for a third-party cover, but I just did, and this one looks pretty good for the money.
You can believe both, Diana.
Major traditional publishers *are* seeing their own ebook sales falling.
But they are dead wrong when they equate their own falling sales with ebook sales *in general*.
Ebook sales are still growing; they just aren’t books from those “major traditional publishers” anymore.
‘Major traditional publisher’ ebook sales being down might have something to do with pricing them very frequently even higher than print versions. You suppose?
No accident, that.
It’s deliberate policy.
Big publishers price ebooks unattractively, to preserve an outdated paper-book distribution advantage that acts as a barrier to entry for newer, nimbler, more cost-efficient competitors.
It’s a good strategy for those big publishers in the short term. It keeps the money rolling in from their biggest names — the Pattersons, Kings, Robertses, etc., with long-established hardcover and print fanbases.
But it totally screws over all their newer authors and midlisters, who are absolutely reliant on those low-cost digital formats, without which they can’t find their initial audience among voracious readers willing to try new authors they haven’t read before. So, basically, those authors won’t. That’s life.
For that reason, however, it’s also a self-destructive long-term strategy for publishers. When their current crop of cash cow authors retires (and many are nearing the ends of their writing careers), those publishers will have no one coming up through the ranks to replace them.
And they know this. Hence, the growing desperation to recruit “YouTube stars” and “media celebrities” that come with a premade audience out of the box, instead of building long-term author careers.
It’s a valid business choice. Just a shortsighted one.