Sara Weinman just spotted a breakdown of e-book formats that lit agent Steve Axelrod provided for the first week of sales for book by one of his best-selling writers. The numbers show Amazon’s dominance of the e-book trade.
Granted, this is for just one title, and it’s a June stat; and some other people’s numbers are odds with his breakdown—suggesting, for example, that Adobe counts more heavily. Still, I have no doubt that Amazon is e-bookseller #1 right now and will be the Goliath for some months, regardless of how well the Nook or other rivals fare. Perhaps Google Editions will catch up later. By the way, my own theory is that the less technical the book, the more chance that Kindle rather than Adobe will be the leading format, at least for now. Perhaps ePub, a flagship format at Google Editions, will turn things around.
Adobe E-book 4%
Microsoft Reader 2% 
Palm Reader 5%
Mobipocket (Kindle) 78%
Sony Reader 12%
Scroll down to see the info in Mike Shatzkin’s blog. Amazon’s dominance is why I can’t just walk away from the Big Store but must see if it’ll fix the damage it has unwittingly wreaked on my Washington newspaper novel, via botched listings, complete with the message to the right. You can bet that other small-press writer have their own Amazon horror stories.
