subject: Best Sellers Prove E-Books Are Not Going Anywhere [print this page] Best Sellers Prove E-Books Are Not Going Anywhere
The digital market is rapidly growing. Compared with last year, the total sales of e-books for September increased to 188 percent ($39.9 million), according to figures released by the Association of American Publishers. Publishers Lunch, a newsletter in the publishing industry, also reported that 9.5 percent of total trade book sales can be credited to e-books. What's more, Forrester Research predicts that e-books will soon become a billion-dollar market.
Take, for instance, former U.S. president George W. Bush's newest book, Decision Points, selling over 220,000 copies just on its first day. The astonishing factor here is that e-books account for 50,000 (or approximately 22.7 percent) of those sales.
Other best sellers experiencing this trend include John Grisham's The Confession. According to Nielsen BookScan, Grisham's latest legal thriller sold 160,000 hardcover copies in its first week. This may seem like a huge drop compared with his previous novel, The Associate, which sold 223,000 hardcover copies in its opening week. However, it should be noted that along with the hardcover sales of that first week, the Wall Street Journal related that The Confession also sold 70,000 more copies in digital format. E-books now make up around 30 percent of total sales for Grisham's newest booksquite amazing considering that this is the very first year his novels have been made available in digital format.
Even more significant is what happened last summer when I'd Know You Anywhere, Laura Lippman's suspense thriller, sold more e-books than hardcovers in its opening week! Further, the New York Times reinforced the fact that e-books are not going anywhere but up when it announced in November 10, 2010, that it will publish an e-book best seller list starting early next year.
Despitee-book sales seeing continuous growth, publishers still need to deal with the "headaches" caused by the effects of cannibalization. While the release of the digital version can be delayed by weeks or months, this method has proven to be a "nonstarter," and it's also not likely that the print and e-book versions will be released at the same time. Further, deciding on the right price for the e-book involves much thought because readers bent on going digital may be discouraged if an e-book is more expensive than a "heavily discounted hardcover" or "gives the illusion of being too high."
Together with the climb in e-book sales, inWrite too is experiencing growth in the quantity of e-books submitted for proofreading and copyediting. Apart from our proofreading and copyediting services, we also offer various writing services, including copywriting and technical writing. So if you have an e-book in raw form or an idea for your Web site's content, shoot us an e-mail atinfo@inwrite.com .
For the full article, visit http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/big-numbers-for-bush-and-grishams- bestsellers-shows-e-books-are/19711603/.
