Why Authors Should Look to EBooks

This was shared By Bridget (the beautiful and talented webmistress at Dark Eden Press). With her permission, I've posted it here. It's a little choppy, but hopefully, you can see the point, lol.


1) Its tough to get published these days, why? Not because of talent but because Mainstream Publishing Houses are effected by ebooks, audio books, low sales with booksellers, and bookstore closing.

From American Publishing Association: The Adult Hardcover categorywas down by 11.8 percent in April with sales of $113.0 million; however sales were up by 19.4 percent year-to-date. Adult Paperback sales also declined by 3.2 percent for the month ($114.9 million); sales were down 2.0percent for the year.

The Adult Mass Market category declined by 15.2 percent for April with sales totaling $52.2 million; sales declined by 9.3 percent year-to-date.

Audio Book sales posted an increase of 8.1 percent for April compared to last year's figures with sales totaling $12.3 million; sales for the whole year were up by 14.2 percent. E-books sales rose by 13.8 percent for the month ($2.5 million); the category also posted an increase of14.2 percent for the year. (E-book figures were compiled in cooperation with the International Digital Publishing Forum).

2) Bookstores are closing across America. Borders has closed nearly half of its Waldenbooks stores thats 350 stores and is effecting our bottom line as authors,and Borders sold most of its 73 superstores overseas.Why? My humble opinion, who can afford $ 22-$ 29.00 for a book anymore. Even the trade and mass paperbacks are $ 14-$15.00. Also, with Sony E-Book Reader, Palm, Franklin, Mobi and on their home or laptop computers. Why because of the price, convience (most ebook readers hold 100-1000 books, ebook average around $ 5-$ 6.00).

They are reading books on computers. Its easier to travel with a light weightebook reader than several pounds of books. The small independent bookstores are closing around us. Will we se the end of print books in our lifetime, absolutely not!!!!!!!! I haveprint books and enjoy turning the pages but these are numbers do effect the bottom line.Bookstores closings effect agents, publishers, everyone.

Again, getting that first book accepted or published has nothingto do with talent, it all has to do with the bottom line. It costs a lot of money to launch a first time author and thats why the major houses are asking their current authors with a following to produce more. So where are the mainstream publishing houses looking to find new authors. From the ebook world-where they have a following and have demonstrated they can write financially successful books.

Here some more facts:

3) From Dan Poytner at www.parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm 6 large publishers (in New York) 3-400 medium-sized publishers 86,000 small/self-publishers

The six U.S. conglomerate publishers are
1.. Random House, Inc.
2.. Penguin Putnam Inc.
3.. HarperCollins
4.. Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings
5.. Time Warner
6.. Simon & Schuster, Inc.

78% of the titles published come from the small/self-publishers. eBook sales increased 1,442% in January 2003 over January 2002. --Publishers weekly, March 24, 2003. http://www.publishe/ <http://www.publishe/<http://www.publishersweekly.com/ rsWeekly.com rsWeekly.com 70% of book fair visitors are ready to buy electronic books ifthey can run them on any computer. 67% are ready to read the, 62% would borrow them from a library. --Open E-Book Forum as reported in Booktech the Magazine, January/February 2003