Apple Touts the iBooks Store's "Rapidly Growing Catalog"

I received this "New on iTunes" email from Apple yesterday which included the first mention directly from Apple, to my knowledge, the the iBooks catalog has grown significantly since it was launched with 60,000 titles on April. This has got to be good news for iBooks readers:

	The iBookstore's rapidly growing catalog includes The New York Times bestsellers, free classics, and new releases, as well as books with brilliant, full-color artwork and photos. We've also just added books enhanced with audio and video. Download the iBooks app and read the summer's hottest fiction and nonfiction on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

The Bloom is Off the Rose as Apple's Free iBooks App Slips to #8, But It's Still #1 in Our Cumulative Top Charts Rankings, While Kindle May Lead in Actual iPad eBook Sales

By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Planet iPad ©Planet iPad 2010

Apple's free iBooks app -- seen so recently by agency model publishers as the White Knight that would save them from Amazon and the Kindle -- has slipped dramatically in popularity with iPad owners, and the proof is right here for all to see in the radiant color of an iPad screen shot taken at 10:30 AM Eastern July 16, 2010.

After leading the iPad apps' Top Charts rankings for most of the past 3 1/2 months since the iPad's April 3 release date, and only occasionally slipping as low as #3, the free iBooks app fell to #5 yesterday and #8 this morning.

Of course the news is not quite as bleak, for Apple's new incarnation as a bookseller, as this might seem at first blush. Due to the vagaries of Apple's Top Charts listings, position is based on a chronologically brief sample of recent app downloads, so that it is extremely sensitive at any given time to what we'll call "the flavor of the week," or even "of the day." In other words, apps that are brand new or newly buzzworthy sometimes dominate the charts for a day or two before falling back. And then there's the additional fact, of course, that anyone who downloads does not have to download it again, which would mean that the iBooks app rankings could suffer if the iPad's sales momentum were to flag a bit.

With these list-shaping issues in mind, we've kept a close watch on the iPad apps' Top Charts rankings on a daily basis since the first week of April, and as a result we are able to present -- with a high but not absolute level of confidence -- what a cumulative Top Charts ranking would look like for the iPad free apps listing if it were adjusted to exclude the "flavor of the week" bounces described above:

1. iBooks 
2. Netflix
3. Weather Channel
4. Kindle  
5. USA Today 
6. ABC Player
7. WebMD  
8. Pandora 
9. NPR 
10. Barnes & Noble eReader

These rankings, of course, will differ dramatically from rankings -- rankings that we're unlikely to see, I might add -- based on the actual level of commerce transacted. Based on what we know about relative size and quality of catalog, prices, methods of payment, and customer behavior, here's my educated guess as to the likely revenue ranking among free iPad apps:

1. Kindle 
2. Netflix 
3. iBooks 
4. B&N

Although there is early excitement to try out iBooks' spiffy functionality when a customer first receives an iPad, the fact that the iBooks catalog is dwarfed by the Kindle catalog (reportedly on the order of 15:1 or 20:1 after public domain titles are excluded) ultimately leads regular readers to more Kindle transactions.

The Man Behind the Magical Curtain: Will Steve Jobs Share iBooks Metrics and Improvement Plans in June 7 WWDC Keynote?

It will be interesting to hear what Steve Jobs has to say when he delivers the keynote address at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 7:

• Will he announce that iPad sales have exceeded 3 million through the end of May?
• Will he deliver on the promise that Apple would stand on Amazon's Kindle-shoulders and take ebooks to a higher level by sharing substantive information on selection, catalog count, pricing, and sales in the iBooks Store?
• Will he announce the availability of the iBooks app on the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and the Mac?
• Will he commit Apple to improving the search, sort, and browse infrastructure of the iBooks Store?
• Will he open up the iBooks Store and the App Store to direct access for indie authors and publishers without a requirement of often expensive intermediation by third parties such as Lightning Source/Ingram, O'Reilly Digital Distribution, and Smashwords?
• Will he announce that, thanks to the iPad, America is reading again?

We'll see in two weeks.

Here's the guts of the company's news release this morning:

Steve Jobs to Kick Off Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference 2010 with Keynote Address on Monday, June 7

CUPERTINO, California—May 24, 2010—Apple® will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address by CEO Steve Jobs on Monday, June 7 at 10:00 a.m. This year’s WWDC sold out in a record eight days to over 5,000 developers.

The five-day event running from June 7 to June 11, is focused on providing advanced content for skilled developers across five key technology tracks: Application Frameworks; Internet & Web; Graphics & Media; Developer Tools; and Core OS. Apple engineers will deliver over 100 solutions-oriented technical sessions and labs. WWDC 2010 gives an incredibly diverse community the opportunity to connect with thousands of fellow iPhone®, iPad™ and Mac® developers from around the world.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Could Apple's iBooks Catalog Be Approaching 100,000 Titles?

By Stephen Windwalker
Copyright © 2010 iPad Nation Daily

Could the title count in Apple's iBooks Store be approaching 100,000 titles just a month after launch?


A helpful new breakdown of titles in Apple's iBooks catalog by O'Reilly Radar's Ben Lorica shows Project Gutenberg as the publisher for 31.4% of all listings, which is about double the number of listings for each of the three largest private publishing conglomerates (Penguin US, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins) and over four times the total for MacMillan or Hachette. Random House, the world's largest publisher of English-language books, is unrepresented on the iBooks venue due to the publisher's refusal to submit to Apple's brave new "agency model" world.

Fiction leads the way with 54% of all the listings detected by Lorica, and despite some concerns that Apple would play a heavyhanded censorship role, 1% of all titles are categorized as Erotica.

This breakdown avoids any repetition of last week's controversy over the number of titles, since Lorica sticks with percentages of the whole without reference to the size of the whole. Apple press office spokesman Tom Neumayr contacted iPad Nation Daily Monday and confirmed that "we definitely have over 60,000 titles in the iBooks catalog."

Indeed, if one juxtaposes the 31.4% Gutenberg percentage with previous reports of 30,000 free Gutenberg-based listings in the Kindle Store, one could extrapolate that the iBooks catalog has grown to about 96,000 titles, but all such figures will remain highly suspect until Apple itself announces some updated catalog count figures.

As Marion Maneker observed earlier this week in a post at The Big Money, "these early numbers suggest that the iPad is very much a direct competitor to the Kindle and that books are a moderate success on the device. It would be interesting to know where the Kindle app stands in relation to these app and iBook numbers. Alas, the one thing Amazon seems to have adopted from Apple is the same obsession with selective numbers and secrecy."

But the Kindle Store does reveal Google-like search counts on catalog searches and consequently allows a high level of transparency for those of us who are curious about such matters, while Apple's various retail stores reveal little of such information.  Apple's Neumayr was uncertain Monday about whether the company would become more open about title counts, but promised to share any such revelations, if they occur, with iPad Nation Daily.


Of course, Project Gutenberg is not the only source of free books in the iBooks Store. There are few if any of the "free promotional titles" that currently occupy the dozen or so highest rungs on the Kindle Store bestseller list, but free ebooks from the DIY/indie publishing service Smashwords do hold four of the top 70 spots on the iBooks "Top Charts" for free books:

• #41 - All Employees Are Marketers (Business)
• #49 - Nostradormouse (Children)
• #65 - Time Zone (Fiction)
• #66 - The Nude (Short Story)

The other two free titles that are interspersed with Smashwords and Project Gutenberg offerings among the top 70 iBooks "Top Charts" listings for free books are Crossway's ESV Bible at #36 and, rather strangely, Winnie the Pooh at #62. Since Winnie the Pooh is automatically downloaded free to every iPad owner who downloads the iBooks app, one wonders how it could rank anywhere but #1 among the top iBooks "Top Charts" listings for free books. I would understand if Apple chose not to count Winnie the Pooh either among the "Top Charts" listings or in the math that supported the company's press release Monday, which stated that the million or so new iPad owners had downloaded 1.5 million iBooks titles in April. But if it is being counted, how could it be #62?

Apple Announces 1 Million iPads Sold and Sets the Record Straight: "We Definitely Have Over 60,000 Titles in the iBooks Catalog"

Following some low-level mystery in recent days about the actual count of titles in the iBooks catalog, Apple press office spokesman Tom Neumayr contacted iPad Nation Daily and confirmed that "we definitely have over 60,000 titles in the iBooks catalog."

We'll take the company at its word and assume that there was some form of data mining glitch that led O'Reilly Radar researcher to post "over 46,000" as the number of titles he was able to detect at the iBooks venue. Neumayr was uncertain if Apple would make periodic statements to announce updates to the number of iBooks titles. The catalog of available iPad-compatible titles in the Kindle for iPad app numbers over 510,000.

In any case, the confirmation comes on a day when Apple has been announcing robust sales of several kinds in the magical world of the iPad:

• Apple sold its 1 millionth iPad on Friday, just 28 days after launch.
• iPad users have already downloaded 12 million apps from the App Store.
• Enough iPad users are readers that they have downloaded 1.5 million ebooks from the iBooks Store.

The Apple press release, which follows, gave no guidance on how many ebooks had been downloaded with other ebook apps including Kindle, Stanza, and Kobo.

Apple Sells One Million iPads

CUPERTINO, California—May 3, 2010—Apple® today announced that it sold its one millionth iPad™ on Friday, just 28 days after its introduction on April 3. iPad users have already downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore. 
“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”
iPad allows users to connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before. Users can browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch™ user interface. iPad is 0.5 inches thin and weighs just 1.5 pounds—thinner and lighter than any laptop or netbook—and delivers up to 10 hours of battery life.*
Developers have created over 5,000 exciting new apps for iPad that take advantage of its Multi-Touch user interface, large screen and high-quality graphics. iPad will run almost all of the more than 200,000 apps on the App Store, including apps already purchased for your iPhone® or iPod touch®. 
*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution with the Apple II, then reinvented the personal computer with the Macintosh. Apple continues to lead the industry with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system, and iLife, iWork and professional applications. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store, has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

60,000 eBooks in the iBooks Store? 46,000? Imprecise O'Reilly Radar Post Could Brew a Tempest

How many books are there in the iPad's iBooks Store? How many of them are free? And is the total number growing or declining?

I'm not sure how many ebooks there are, but for now at least, there's more than one story.

It has been widely reported, since late March, that the iBooks Store would open, and did open, with a total catalog of about 60,000 books, of which about half (30,000) are free listings from Project Gutenberg.

This has been the story from Apple's friends at Gizmodo, reported here:

The official Apple way to get ebooks for the iPad, the iBooks store has just 60,000 books in it for now, all in the ePub format.

That 60,000 number has been reported elsewhere by ZDnet, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and the New York Times' David Pogue, to name a few. And of course, it's important. For some of us, the potential of the iBooks Store and other iPad reading apps like the Kindle, Stanza, AudioBooks, and Kobo Books have been a major influence in our decision to buy an iPad.

Then along comes an O'Reilly Radar blog post Thursday by Ben Lorica, a Senior Researcher in the Market Research Group at O'Reilly Media, Inc., to take away any confidence that I had in that 60,000 figure. Lorica provides a professional presentation with tables to break down the catalog in the iBooks Store by category or genre, publisher, and mean ebook price within top categories. It's an interesting and graphically impressive chart. In addition to being posted on O'Reilly's highly respected research website, it has been picked up by reputable sites like Teleread and discussed right here at iPad Nation Daily.


After its initial statements about the number of books downloaded from the iBooks store during the first weekend in April, Apple has been uncharacterustically quiet lately about relevant catalog or sales numbers in its iBooks store. Amazon is even quieter about such numbers with regard to the Kindle Store, but the overall transparency of the Kindle Store for search, sort, and browse makes it easy to mine and quantify Amazon's data, whereas the iBooks Store gives up very little metadata about itself. So it's great to have a professional come in and mine the data, and Lorica's web page makes it clear that he is a no slouch when it comes to having the chops as a miner, stat guy, and market analyst:

I am currently  I have applied Business Intelligence, Data Mining and Statistical Analysis in a variety of domains including Financial Engineering, Direct Marketing, Consumer and Market Research, Targeted Advertising, and Text Mining. My background includes stints with an investment management company, internet startups, and financial services. At O'Reilly, I work on custom research and consulting projects, open source data warehousing and analytics. I remain interested in Quantitative Finance and my musings can be found on my blog The Practical Quant.  An ex-academic, I was an Assistant Professor at U.C. Davis and was the founding Department Chair for Statistics and Mathematics at C.S.U. Monterey Bay. I have been a visiting member of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley and have taught at U.C. Santa Barbara and the University of the Philippines. I enjoy writing and have written and published on topics ranging from Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Finance, Marketing Research, and Technology. 

Only one problem: when Lorica adds it all up, he refers to the total of "books available through the iBooks app" as "over 46,000 (paid and free)."

Excuse me? I'm no data miner, but I have some experience with communication. Ordinarily when someone says "over 46,000" it is shorthand for 46,326 or 46,785, or something along those lines. It is not a phrase that anyone would intentionally use if they meant "about 60,000." Nowhere in the presentation does Lorica use the word "estimate" or "about" say words to the effect that "these are rough figures." When Teleread linked to the post, Teleread editor Paul K. Biba read the 46,000 figure as definitively as I did -- "O’Reilly Radar has some data on the 46,000 (paid and free) bnooks [sic] available through the iBooks app" -- and there are no comments from Lorica or O'Reilly protesting the specificity.

Are such numbers important? Of course they will all be forgotten in time if the iPad and, conceivably, the iBooks Store continue their dizzying ascent to nerd nirvana. But there's a big difference between 46,000 and 60,000, and someone ought to have egg on his or its face here, at the very least. When New York Times tech columnist David Pogue caught Barnes & Noble trying to downsize the weight of its Nook ebook reader by less than an ounce in January, his widely discussed rant entitled Bogus Tech Measurements added to the overall bad taste that rendered the initial launch of the Nook a disaster of Edselian proportions.

Like many other iPad Nation citizens, I care about my iPad and I care about such details. I've been trying to get either Lorica and O'Reilly, or Apple, to clean it up. I typed the following email on my Mac and sent it to four individuals in Apple's press office about 15 hours ago, when there were still three or four hours left in what I assume is the workday in Cupertino:

Subject: Question about size of iBooks catalog after O'Reilly Research report that it's only about 46,000


Hello,

By way of introduction, I have a relatively new but popular blog called iPad Nation Daily, a sister blog called Kindle Nation Daily, and my book on the Kindle was the #1 seller, period, in the Kindle Store way back in 2008. I'm also a happy iPad owner who has bought iPod Touches for my son, daughter, and girlfriend.

Although we've all been reporting that the iBooks store launched with about 60,000 titles, a pretty reliable researcher and data guy named Ben Lorica had a post yesterday on O'Reilly Radar in which he claimed that the total number of titles in the iBooks store is only 46,000, with about 32% of them free.

Could you verify that the figure at launch was about 60,000 or otherwise correct the record on this? I don't want to play gotcha and I would be happy to learn that Lorica was in error or that there was some other basis for the discrepancy.

I look forward to hearing from you or a colleague as soon as possible, and you can feel free either to email me here or call my cell at 339-368-xxxx.

Regards,
Steve Windwalker

No response.

I also sent Ben a couple of comments:

Terrific work, Ben. I'm surprised that the aggregate figure is 46,000, since we were all hearing 60,000 as of the 4/3 release date and would have expected some growth since then. Is there any chance that the 46,000 figure covers titles for which there has been an actual sale, or am I barking up the wrong apple tree? I'm naturally resistant to the notion that Apple would have padded the numbers!

Cheers,
Steve

and

Ben, sorry to be a nudge about this, but I'm still confused about the 46,000 figure. Do you know of anything in your approach that could have led to an undercounting of the total size of the catalog? Reporting of 60,000+ books has been consistent across all other media, so if it is only 46,000 you have a real story.
Steve

It took him 26 hours to respond, but he did finally email and post the following:

Stephen Windwalker,
What I said was "... half of the over 46,000 ...".
Our numbers are estimates at best, thus my preference for showing percentages, instead of absolute numbers.
Ben

So, let's see, Ben. The original post said nothing about estimates and included no disclaimer to offset its presentation of numbers as definitive. Now, in the 12th comment on the post, you disclose that your original numbers are not only "estimates," but "estimates at best?" During your stints as an Assistant Professor at U.C. Davis or as the founding Department Chair for Statistics and Mathematics at C.S.U. Monterey Bay, or in your publications on topics ranging from Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Finance, Marketing Research, and Technology, did you ever advise students that they could throw numbers that were "estimates at best" around to create a definitive-looking public presentation without any disclaimer but, not to worry, they could always come back in an offhand comment a day or two later and explain that they were "estimates at best?"

I don't meant to harsh anyone's mellow out there in California. Maybe the total catalog is 60,000, maybe it's 46,000, and maybe it's somewhere in between. I'm a huge fan of O'Reilly Media and (until now) all it does, of Apple's products, and of the truth. I love the fact that Ben Lorica did the study, and I would like to be able to rely on presentations like this from O'Reilly.

But Lorica and O'Reilly should either clean the original post up and state the necessary disclaimers prominently from the top, or take it down with an apology that is not burdened by any aggression, active or passive, toward the messenger. A statement that they understand the importance of relative precision in such matters would also be appropriate.

If the iBooks catalog figure is indeed north of 60,000, as I hope and still expect it to be, Apple doesn't have to do a thing other than get on the case of growing it from such puny levels.

On the other hand, if the real figure is only 46,000 or thereabouts, Mr. Jobs, you got some splainin' to do....

Update, 3 :30 pm ET 5.1.2010: Ben Lorica responded significantly with the following comment, and changed the wording of his original post accordingly:

Stephen Windwalker,
I made the adjustments to reflect that the mix of titles by category and publisher are estimates based on the titles "... we detected as being offered through the iBooks app...".
Best,
Ben

This seems like a fair representation, and of course it puts the onus squarely on Apple to provide two pieces of information:

• First, what is the actual number of titles at this point in the iBooks Store?
• Second, if it is significantly higher than 46,000, why are some titles undetectable?