Book promotion |
Internet Authors Network | marketing books on the internet | Internet book marketing |
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Book promotion |
Internet Authors Network | marketing books on the internet | Internet book marketing |
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By contrast, Scott Adams claimed to have the top-selling eBook for 2001 with God's Debris, which sold over 4500 copies. However, Adams also claimed that "it's rare for any eBook to crack a thousand (sales)". He did not seem to be aware of Leta Nolan Childers's previous sales record. Some eBook publishers claim an average of about 1,000 copies per year of annual ePublications. And in the middle of 2002, eTextbooks started earning mention in the news media. The most conservative estimates of eBook sales put their revenues at something like $9,000,000 for the year 2000. Conservative projections show an increase to $414,000,000 by 2004. Print book sales through traditional outlets are measured in billions (9 zeros) of dollars annually. So eBook sales have a way to go before they really start threatening print sales. But if $9,000,000 was brought in by eBooks in 2000, where did the money go? Who is selling the books? The problem with tracking eBook sales is that there are four sources for eBooks: self-published authors, small eBook publishers operating over the Internet, publishing services providers (vanity presses), and traditional presses. Rarely does anyone report actual sales figures, and there is no central clearing house for information. The traditional presses tend to report percentage increases in sales over previous years. For example, in 2002, McGraw-Hill reported their eBook sales were "up 55% over the same period last year". Well, is that 55% of 1,000 sales or 55% of 100,000 sales? It makes a difference. The makers of the Palm microcomputer reported over 180,000 eBook sales for 2001. Those sales, in their proprietary format, are an aggregate number for ALL eBook titles sold in Palm format. Probably, major publishers and distributors like Palm sold in total fewer than 1,000,000 eBooks in 2001. And yet, those sales must be regarded as only the tip of the iceberg, since no one is collecting data on the thousands of eBooks being sold by individuals and smaller companies. But who is really making any money through eBook sales? Discounting the fact that most eBooks will sell at least a few copies, a lot of the money is being made by businesses. That is, technical manuals and "How to make money..." books sold as eBooks over the Web generate a lot of money. Technical manuals have a pretty limited market, but the "How to make money..." industry has always made a bundle off gullible readers who answer these ads in magazines. There are more and more people people "How to make money..." books off the Internet every year. And eBooks satisfy that immediate gratification demand all that much more quickly. If it's not apparent by now who is selling the most eBooks, it should be. People with name-recogniton and established readerships are selling the most eBooks. By extension, the people with the greatest name-recognition and established readerships are selling the most books online (and online book sales total more than $2,000,000,000 annually -- they comprise more than 40% of all online purchases). How can unknown authors market their books online? Don't despair. Although your chances of duplicating Stephen King's success in today's market are virtually non-existant, you can still work toward achieving a measure of success. It doesn't matter if you are promoting an eBook, a print-on-demand book, a book you've printed up yourself, or just a title that isn't getting much of a promotional boost from a traditional (or an online) publisher. There are things you can do to help your online book sales. First, you need to build some name visibility. Name visibility differs from name recognition in that recognition is established by visibility. Or, look at it this way. Stephen King has name recognition because people know who he is. Edward Mulberry III only has name visibility because his name is mentioned on this Web site. After you leave here, you'll forget his name unless you encounter it over and over again elsewhere. |
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