Amazon's Long Tail Not So Long

Chris Anderson, whose original "Long Tail" article in Wired claimed that Amazon gained a remarkable 57% of its sales from books not available in brick and mortar stores, now retracts that number. Based on a recalibration, working with Amazon rank maven Morris Rosenthal, he now estimates the Amazon tail to be between 20 and 36%. Still a nice part of Amazon's revenue, but not as shocking as originally estimated.