Kindle Ratio for 1 Apr 2010 – 45%

So, after the last book I read the percentage of the last 20 books I have read that are available on Kindle returns to 45%. It had dropped to 40% previously. Now, a caveat to that number based on some additional investigation I did last time… there is at least one book in those 20 books, maybe more, where while the exact book I had is not available, a different edition of the same book is, which would raise this ratio a bit higher. But for consistency, I’ll be sticking to the method I have been using since I started tracking this, which is basically finding the exact book I read on Amazon, then seeing if they do or do not have the “this is also available on Kindle” banner. So… 45% for now.

I have of course been saying for over a year now that I will officially want a Kindle once this ratio goes over 50%. One reason I’m being somewhat conservative about this is that I fully intend that once I switch over to electronic books, I will NEVER BUY A PHYSICAL BOOK AGAIN… except if I have no choice because I need it for work or class or something or I am really really desperate to read something only available in physical form. Now, that isn’t saying I won’t read a physical book if I have one given to me, or if it is one I already own in physical form and want to read… but I will be strongly resistant to buying any more physical books once I make the switchover. So, I don’t want to make that switch prematurely.

Of course, while I have some bias to this device over others, so far none of the other dedicated e-readers have impressed me at all. Of course, my gadget lust right now is building rapidly for something else entirely. I probably won’t go there either in this first wave, but… since it is a device that will do e-reader stuff (including Kindle books as well as e-Books from other sources) but will also do all kinds of other things, it changes the whole evaluation equation in a way that is different than a dedicated e-reader. And yes, a dedicated device is optimized for that one specific thing (reading) and the multi-purpose device might sometimes be sub-optimal for that task (maybe), but… that is balanced by the other functionality. Although, really, if I had a multi-function device that I could also read books on, I think the amount of time spent actually doing such reading would be much less than on a dedicated device, because I’d simply be too tempted by the other functions…

We shall see. In the mean time, it sure is taking a long time to break the 50% barrier on this metric I chose. I’ve specifically not picked books to influence this ratio. I was hoping my number would have gone up faster.