Can Kindle Sales Have A Positive Impact On POD Sales?

I do not buy into the idea readers will buy a Kindle edition of a book and then buy a print, or POD edition of the same title. During my college years, I was guilty, as were many of my friends, of purchasing a vinyl record, playing it once to see if I liked it, sealing it in a plastic protective cover and purchasing a cassette copy to play, preserving the vinyl copy in its pristine state. Buying a Kindle edition and a print edition is not the same thing.

Since my Kindle edition of The Game of Basketball has been available, it has sold well. This month it has sold over 60 copies and as I type, it is the second best selling Kindle book about coaching basketball. Not bad given the theory non-fiction does not sell on Kindle. In the two months the Kindle edition has been available it has sold over a copies. I wish the POD version had sold as well in its first two months.

POD sales of The Game of Basketball on Amazon have been dismal in the print edition's first year of availability. I am excited to state sales of the POD version have picked up considerably since the release of the Kindle version. The month of January alone has seen more POD copies purchased from Amazon than all other months combined, excluding from that total December of 2010, which prior to January, 2011, had been the best sales month for the title.

Is there a connection or is this simply coincidence? I hope there is a connection and that sales of one edition on Amazon will help drive the sales of the other edition. Of course, at this early date, there is no way to tell and I have no insight into the mysteries of Amazon search results and how the sales of the two editions can help promote the title overall. Amazon never talks about their software and I will have to wait until the math minds have tracked enough titles and crunched the numbers to make a determination.

In the mean time though, I am hoping the newly released Kindle edition of 301 Frequently Asked Questions About Self-Publishing will eventually begin to sell and have the same positive impact on the sales of its POD brother.