Open innovation best-sellers

Our 2006 edited volume on open innovation from Oxford is now in paperback — reducing the price from $100 to $40 — and predictably sales have improved. (Alas, with the falling dollar, the hardback price has risen to $125).

The book is at #23,227 on the Amazon best seller. By comparison, the paperback version of Chesbrough’s 2003 book is #52,871 on Amazon overall (although that’s five years after the hardback came out).

However, the best selling book on open innovation (#12,804 overall) is Chesbrough’s 2006 book. In discussing his two HBSP books, Chesbrough said that if the 2003 book was to introduce open innovation to R&D managers, the 2006 book was intended for finance and other business types.

The Amazon subrankings are a little odd. Chesbrough’s 2003 book is #10 on “Books > Science > Technology > Innovations,” which makes sense. His later book is also #10, on “Books > Business & Investing > By Publisher > Harvard Business School Press > Strategy Planning”; more strangely, it’s #1 “Books > Science > Technology > Nanotechnology”. Our 2006 book is #1 in “Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Mechanical > Automation,” which is equally strange.

The hardback did much better than Oxford expected, so I have high hopes for the paperback.