Where readers buy their ebooks? Week 3 of our 10-week survey: still no sign of Google eBookstore

Two weeks ago we started an ebook experiment. Like all experiment, it begins with a question: Where will readers look to buy their ebooks? Following the launch of Google eBookstore, its relationships with independent bookstores and Amazon's reply, the competition between ebook retailers is getting fierce.

Our assumption is that many readers will look for ebooks using a search engine and will buy from one of the first results in their search. So we randomly chose 10 books of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2010, opened Google webpage, typed each title with the word ebook and wrote down the first two results we got. We will redo it every Thursday for 10 weeks (this week we're a little bit late due to the holiday..) and see if there are going to be any changes in the search results.

Here are the results for week 3. In brackets you'll see the first week results. If they were the same we just wrote 'same'. And if you click on the titles, you will be forwarded to the first place on the title's search):

1. Girl by the Road at Night by David Rabe
1st place: Simon & Schuster (same)
2nd place: Simon & Schuster (same)

2. The Long Song by Andrea Levy
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

3. The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Amazon.com (same)

4. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Random House (Barnes & Noble)

5. Big Girls Don't Cry by Rebecca Traister
1st place: Simon & Schuster (same)
2nd place: Simon & Schuster (same)

6. The Price of Altruism by Oren Harman
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Kobo (Amazon)

7. INSECTOPEDIA by Hugh Raffles
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Random House (same)

8. Country Driving by Peter Hessler
1st place: Barnes & Noble (same)
2nd place: goodreads (Amazongoodreads)

9. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
1st place: Random House (same)
2nd place: Barnes & Noble (same)

10. Hitch 22 by Christopher Hitchens
1st place: Amazon.com (same)
2nd place: Barnes & Noble (same)

Here's the summary of the results:

	Amazon		B&N		Google		Publishers		Others
	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd	1st	2nd
week 1	6	3	1	2			3	4		1
week2	6	4	1	3			3	3		0
week3	6	2	1	2			3	4		2

We give 2 points for 1st place and 1 point for 2nd place:

		Amazon		B&N		Google		Publishers		Others
week 1		15		4		0		10		1
week 2		16		5		0		9		0
week 3		14		4		0		10		2

As you can see we didn't much of a change this week. Amazon lost two points, but is still in the first place. It will be interesting to see if this trend will continue next week or if Amazon will manage to continue showing a strong performance. Two more things worth mentioning: 1. There's still no sign of Google eBookstore at the top ranked search results. 2. Kobo is showing for the first time.was quite boring with almost no changes. It will be interesting to see if any efforts made towards this Christmas day will change anything next week. See you next Thursday!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!