Thursday, March 24, 2011

Nook vs Kindle

   I have a funny little trend going on with my book. At least it seems odd to me because all of the research that I have done around self-publishing led me to believe that Kindle would be where I should be selling the most books.
   I really have not found that to be true. Not yet anyway. My Nook books are outselling my Kindle books by about 13 to 1. A big difference.
   When I first noticed this trend, I sat down and tried to figure out what could cause such a difference. I started beefing up my posts and tweets to the Kindle link. I encouraged more people to leave a review on Kindle. I started running contests. Nothing has helped.
   I know that Amazon has never openly admitted to how many Kindles they are selling, but it is believed to be a pretty great number. I don't really believe that there are more Nook people out there than Kindle people. Maybe someone should do a study on the the two. Nook People VS Kindle People. Maybe it's some personality trait that causes someone to choose one over the other. Who knows?
   Maybe Kindle just has more books listed. Maybe it's too much competition. I don't have the answer, but I do have the numbers. For me, Nook is where it's at.
   I personally chose the Nook Color, well, because it was in color. Plus, I can use it to search the web when I'm to lazy to get out of the bed. I looked at a few other ereaders that were out when I purchased it, and the Nook had everything that I wanted and more.
   I do remember that retailers around the time of Black Friday and Christmas were practically giving ereaders away. I often wonder if that had anything to do with Amanda Hocking's success. Suddenly, a million teenage girls woke up to find that Santa left them a Kindle. What else were they going to read? Vampires, Fairies, and Trolls for $.99. You can't get any better than that. Heck, those were the first books that I purchased when I bought my Nook. I didn't even know who she was then.
   All that I can say is that it's definitely a learning experience. I figure out something new everyday. Maybe someday I'll be a master at it.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting! I bought a kindle because on my recent trip to Hawaii in January, at all the airports, I saw people with a kindle and had to ask them all kinds of questions about it because I knew I was going to buy something to sell my book on. When I got home, I bought not only 1 kindle, but a total of 3. I placed my book on two of them, before I actually put it on Amazon, and shipped one to my mother for her birthday and another to a friend. My book on Amazon was published on Feb 8, 2011 and it has not reached B&N net from Smashwords, but I did see it on Sony estore today, so I can't track how my book has done on other readers like you were able to do yours. Great article. Jacqueline Hopkins author of Wilderness Heart, a contemporary romance.

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  2. Thanks so much! I ended up opting out of Amazon and B&N on Smashwords and I am glad that I did. I just got final approval through them last week and my book has only shipped to Sony. I added to Kindle and Nook directly just under a month ago. My book was available on Nook within 24 hours and Kindle took close to a week. I have not sold anything through Smashwords, but there have been several who sampled. I hope once it ships to Sony, Kobo. etc that will change. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

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