By Andrew Wilkins
Those who want to know where the consumer e-book market is heading should pay particular attention to the Power Buyer, said Bowker’s Kelly Gallagher at Monday’s Publishers Launch conference.
While they make up only 20% of all e-book purchasers, Power Buyers are the most voracious and influential, buying at least one e-book a week.
Taking of influencers, one would imagine bricks-and-mortar bookstores are strong on Amazon’s radar too, if figures given by Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of UK “book discovery” site Anobii, are to be believed. The most common source of book information influencing online book buying is . . . wait for it . . . the humble bookshop, influencing for 30% of all buying decisions.
Once consumers migrate to Kindle, there are even more sales, with Kindle users buying three times as many books once they have “entered the Kindle eco-system,” than Amazon’s print book customers, according to Amazon’s David Naggar.
Publishing Perspectives was going to ask David if his employer was worried it was putting so many bookstores out of business given how important they were to Amazon’s success. Alas, he was so delighted at finishing his talk within time, he didn’t stop to take questions.
One Comment
This information aligns with what we (Library Journals) are finding in our patron research with PubTrack Consumer: However defined, “power” readers drive purchase. And interesting, in the library space, we’re finding that power users who borrow ebooks also buy more books. More to follow with our first release this week . . .