ebooks really successful?

[Patricia]

My adult daughter has an eReader and loves it. She can read when she's travelling, whithout having to carry heavy books around. Some writing pals of mine have sold hundreds of their eBooks. They write Y/A. However, I write children's books and have them in eBook format as well as paperbacks. The paperbacks sell better than the eBooks so far, but hopefully when children have eReaders, which will happen, I'll sell more.

People that buy eBooks don't always buy paperbacks, so you should consider having your book in eBooks format as well. You might be surprised at the sales.

Personally I love to have a book in my hand, but would love an eReader for doing reviews for other writers.

http://childrens-books-author-p-puddl...

[Brenna]

I read about 75% in ebook and 25% in print these days. I read on my laptop, and my oldest owns a handheld reader.

And, I sell many more ebooks than I do print books...BY FAR. I find international readers (including Germans reading English-language books) are avid ebook readers. Western/Central Europe, Australia/New Zealand, South America, and Asia sell particularly well, in my experience. Less so in eastern Europe. Not sure why that is. The UK is a growth market right now, but they were late adopters of ebooks, compared to other countries. Shrug.

Whether or not a book sells well in ebook depends on a lot of things, including...

1. The genre. The bestselling genres usually fall into SF/F/P/H, romance and erotic romance, GLBT of all types, and a few others. Others sell much less.

2. Distribution channels you use. I've found my highest selling channels are Fictionwise, ARe/OmniLit, Amazon, Apple, and B&N...in that order. Below that, they are all scraps. Others may vary in their results.

3. The formats you offer a book in. Your bestselling formats of ebook are likely to be PDF, Mobi or PRC, and ePub. Beyond that, you may want to add others, like PDB, RB, LIT, LRF, HTML, and so forth.

4. Marketing.

5. Existing audience for an author.

6. Publisher site sales and audience.

7. Price point.

8. Dumb luck!

Brenna

[Ron]

Amen to what Brenna said!

I'll just add that country seems to be an issue for sales. Spain, for example, is just beginning to bloom. There is no respectable Indie industry to speak of and most e-books in Spanish are overpriced in national stores.

[Brenna]

And some indie publishers are starting to take advantage of this. For instance, Silver Publishing is not only doing ebook and print, but they are delving deeply into audio and Spanish-language translation ebooks, at the moment.

Brenna