According to Tbe Bookseller website, Bowker is reporting another increase in online retail book sales. From the article:
Online retailers, including Amazon, accounted for 44% of all book spending in the US in 2012, according to Bowker. The figure is up from 39% in 2011, while bookstore chains now account for less than 20% of book spending.
In Occam’s Corner, hosted by The Guardian, Stephen Curry discovers that he really likes the Kindle. From the article:
I thought I loved the physical feel of books too much to become enamoured of ebooks. I loved the heft, the smell, the touch of the paper, the firm but yielding resistance of the spine of a new paperback, the perfect cut of the pages that transforms a gathering of sheets — leaves that flutter easily between the fingers — into a near solid block. Comparisons are hard to find because there is nothing quite like a book. The intimacy of the tactile sensations, along with the joy of ideas and entertainment that are to be found between the covers of those that are well written, have combined to make the book an object not just of veneration — how many are scandalised to find second hand tomes annotated with a reader’s scratchings? — but of love.
Author Aubrey Rose recently wrote a blog post explaining why she decided to turn down an offer from Amazon Publishing’s Montlake Romance imprint.
Why would a self-published author turn down an overture from a publisher? An offer that included royalties, even?
From her post:
“…Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in relaunching my book through Amazon’s imprint.
However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing…”
Ah, ha! Well, that’s par for the publisher course. But wait, there’s more:
“…The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon…”
From PRWEB: Outskirts Press, the leading self-publishing and book marketing services provider, announces a promotion that will help self-publishing authors get the most value for their publishing dollars. Throughout the month of August, authors who publish with Outskirts Press receive a free Kindle Edition, a valuable way to jump-start the marketing efforts into todays electronic world.
Authors who order a Diamond or Pearl book publishing package any time from August 1 through August 31 automatically qualify for the free Kindle Edition with the valid promotion code. Authors not only save hundreds on self-publishing services by bundling them with one of these two popular publishing packages, but receive a $199 Kindle Edition free.
Forget the bustier rippers and the thick afternoon romance novels with Fabio on the cover. According to eBook Explosion, the number one genre out there is ‘sensual romance.’ Mommy porn. The stuff that makes even Anastasia Steele breathe heavier when she’s not hanging out with Christian Grey (yeah, I just made a Shades of Grey reference).
From SBWire:
A new study based on sales of 2,265 eBook titles released by eBook Explosion, a social media marketing company, reports that the “Sensual Romance” genre (dubbed as “Mommy Porn”) has risen to the #1 spot in both sales and conversion rates among the books marketed by the company using the social media.
