Author Disappointed With iBook Sales

[Joe Johaneman]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/09/24/author-im-disappointed-in-ibooks-sales/' target='_blank'>http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/09...n-ibooks-sales/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Konrath has just passed the 100,000 eBooks sold mark, and he has shared his numbers as to on which platforms the books were sold. To put the most important number up first, Konrath sold 78,412 of the 100,000 eBooks on Kindle."</em></p><p><em><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1269897984.usr105634.jpg" /></em></p><p>Joe Konrath revealed his ebook sales, and he says that he only sold 400 ebook copies in the iBooks store, and over 70,000 in the Kindle store. &nbsp;He blames the iBookstore, and I can't say as I blame him. &nbsp;It's really a horribly experience there, and I have never purchased a book there. &nbsp;They hardly ever have anything I want to read (I read mostly literary fiction), and when they do, Amazon almost always has it cheaper (either as a paperback or ebook). &nbsp;Worse, discovering new works is next to impossible. &nbsp;There's just no decent recommendation service in the iBookstore. &nbsp;It's painful to navigate, and the only convenient thing about it is that it's linked to my iTunes account so purchasing books is easy. &nbsp;But so is purchasing books from the Amazon web site. &nbsp;I think Apple has a real problem here, and they need to address it soon. &nbsp;In my opinion, they should stop spending resources on side projects like Ping until they get this problem fixed. &nbsp;Otherwise, they're not going to sell many books. &nbsp;Of course, they make more money from selling iPads at this point, but that probably won't last forever. &nbsp;They need more content in the iBookstore, and they need a simpler interface and a discovery system. &nbsp;Have you ever purchased anything from the iBookstore? &nbsp;</p>

[Jason Dunn]

I haven't done more than dabble in the iBook store on my iPod Touch, but this doesn't surprise me if the iBook store is structured anything like the App Store; discoverability is brutally hard in the App Store - you can search and hope you find a needle in a haystack, but browsing more than a few screens of content is painful. Apple doesn't really get the social aspect of application categories, recommendations, and discovering new things. Apple is good at coming up with a product and telling people why they should want it, but they're much less adept at understanding this sort of thing.