Kindle Exclusives so Far

Here’s a brief list of Kindle Exclusives so far – it’s longer than you’d think.

1.Paulo Coelho has released 39 of his books as ebooks for the first time – these are only the Spanish, French, and Portuguese versions.
2.Ian McEwan, a Booker Prize winner has some of his books out as exclusives. He’s guaranteed 50%+ of royalties with Rosetta Books representing him.
3.Stephen Covey released a few of his books as Kindle exclusives.
4.Literary Agent Andrew Wylie released 20 titles from authors he represents as Kindle Exclusives. That ‘exclusivity’ is now dead – presumably due to threats from Publishers including one or two that said they would stop dealing with him.
5.David Morrell – 10 books from the New York Times bestselling author.
6.Ron Paul.
7.Atlantic Short Stories.
8.Harvard Business Review – Lessons Learned.
9.Michelin Driving Guides.
10.Shmoop Classics.
11.The Visualizing the Web Series.
12.One Day University Series.
13.McGraw Hill Essentials series.
14.Two historical romance series from M. C. Beaton – Six Sisters and The Traveling Matchmaker.
15.A few more books.
To that list we really should include Amazon Encore and Amazon Crossing. Those are books that Amazon will probably not release for other eReaders.

1.There are 60 Amazon Encore titles. The list has been expanding very rapidly.
2.There are 15 Amazon Crossing Titles.
Amazon has been adding titles very quickly to both these imprints. Combine these two with exclusive deals and we’re talking hundreds of Kindle exclusives – including a lot of really good books.

Amazon is taking gems from the backlists, out of print greats, books from the best independent authors, and books from the best international authors and combining them into a very impressive collection. People don’t really realize how quickly this is growing.

Amazon’s latest deal to add Kindle exclusives is a good sign of how serious Amazon is.

Latest Kindle Exclusive – 120 books from Toby Series

From Publishers Weekly we find out that Amazon has added 120 books from the Toby Series to its portfolio -

Amazon has acquired the publication rights of some 120 books currently published by The Toby Press. The books represent works by 61 authors and include literary and commercial fiction titles and works in translation.

It published debut authors such as Crystal Wilkinson, Samantha Dunn, and Joshua Barkan, and celebrated translations of Anna Enquist of the Netherlands, Yasmina Khadra of Algeria, Hartmut Lange and Katharina Hacker of Germany, Haim Sabato and Shlomo DuNour of Israel, and Laurent Gaudé (winner of the Prix Goncourt).

That’s 120 books from promising global authors that will be available in ebook form exclusively in the Kindle Store and will add to Amazon’s existing hoard of exclusives and AmazonEncore and Amazon Crossing titles.

Reactions to Kindle Exclusives

The strongest reactions to Kindle exclusives seem to be negative ones. When an ebook is a Kindle exclusive it locks out Nook and Sony Reader owners and owners of other eReaders.

The only people who can access a Kindle exclusive are Kindle owners and users using one of the many Kindle Apps.

However, the surprising thing is that the protests aren’t very vociferous. It’s as if people don’t fully grasp what it means. Nook owners and other eReader owners probably don’t realize that hundreds of very good books are being locked away from them.

It’s going to lead to three things -

•People getting upset with Amazon.
•People turning to piracy.
•More Kindle sales than there would be otherwise.
Amazon obviously hopes the 3rd happens more frequently than the 1st.

It’s time to look at the bigger picture.

Kindle Exclusives are hard to Quantify and on the verge of becoming significant

Amazon recently opened a movie studio to find promising film-makers and give them a chance. This is so similar to Amazon Encore and Amazon Crossing it’s uncanny.

It also shows what Amazon’s attitude is – it wants to link creators directly to people and weed out everyone else.

My thoughts on all the Kindle Exclusives (and this includes Amazon Encore and Amazon Crossing) -

1.Kindle exclusives, Amazon Encore, and Amazon Crossing aren’t yet a huge difference maker. In fact, when you factor in the flak Amazon gets, the benefits are low.
2.The pace at which Amazon is growing its exclusive content portfolio is ridiculous. At this rate it could become a Top 10 Publisher in a few years.
3.Publishers should be having heart attacks – a New Publishing World is being created where they are completely superfluous.
4.The exclusive content will, sooner or later, translate into increased Kindle sales.
5.Publishers managed to get Andrew Wylie’s portfolio of 20 classics back to non-exclusive status but a lot of literary agents are going to experiment.
6.This is an advantage no one can match. A late entrant definitely can’t get these books and as long as Nook and Sony Reader have small market share they can’t get their hands on these either.
7.Kindle exclusives increase Kindle sales and Kindle ebook sales and in turn make it more viable for authors to release more Kindle exclusives. If the cycle kicks off it’ll become unstoppable.
Amazon is winning on devices, it’s winning on range of books, it’s winning on book prices, it’s winning on WhisperNet services, and it’s winning on customer service.

With its Kindle exclusives, AmazonEncore, and AmazonCrossing it’s taking its ‘best range of books’ advantage to another level. It’s not just going to have an advantage in the long-tail – soon it’ll have a lot of books in the fat-head (high demand, high quality) that are Kindle exclusives.