It seems as if 2011 was the year of the Kindle, with Amazon confirming sales of millions of Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers over the holiday season.
However, it isn’t only Amazon which benefits from e-reader sales.
Indeed, authors continue to make money off the Kindle’s success – as the #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books released in 2011 were both published independently by their authors using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
“[This is obviously a] huge milestone for independent publishing,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
“We’d like to congratulate Darcie Chan, the author of ‘The Mill River Recluse,’ and Chris Culver, the author of ‘The Abbey,’ for writing two of the best-selling Kindle books of the year.”
According to Bezos, December’s #1 best-selling Kindle Direct Publishing book “Wife by Wednesday” was also the #5 overall best-selling Kindle book in December – and has appeared on both the USA Today and Wall Street Journal best seller lists. Author Catherine Bybee, who was formerly an emergency room registered nurse, has left her job to focus on writing full-time.
Meanwhile, KDP and CreateSpace author CJ Lyons reached #2 on the Amazon best seller list, #2 on the New York Times best seller list, and #4 on the USA Today best seller list. As a former pediatric ER doctor, CJ has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels, and she quit her job in medicine after 17 years to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time novelist. Her latest work includes “Face to Face” and “Hot Water.”
Additional Kindle stats include:
- Throughout December, customers purchased well over 1 million Kindle devices per week.
- The new Kindle family held the top three spots on the Amazon.com best seller charts – #1: Kindle Fire, #2: Kindle Touch, #3: Kindle.
- Kindle Fire is the #1 best-selling, most gifted, and most wished for product across the millions of items available on Amazon.com since its introduction 13 weeks ago.
- Gifting of Kindle books was up 175 percent between this Black Friday and Christmas Day compared to the same period in 2010.
- Christmas Day was the biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads.
- Kindle Fire is the best-selling product on Amazon.com’s mobile website and across all of Amazon.com’s mobile applications.
