Monday was a busy day in e-readerdom. First, Apple announced it sold its three millionth iPad--just 80 days after its launch. Second, Barnes & Noble cut the price of its Nook from $259 to $199. B&N also introduced a Wi-Fi only model for $149. Not to be outdone, Amazon fought back, dropping the price of the Kindle from $259 to $189.
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon and Sony both plan to unveil updated versions of their e-readers soon. Price is reported to be an important factor here too. Maybe we'll end up seeing even lower prices. After all, think of the cell phone industry. They practically give away the phones so they can sell you service.
I say yippee to the price cuts. Less expensive e-reader machines will mean more e-reader people. And that's just fine with me, after reviewing my royalty statements for the quarter ending 3/31/09. Sales of e-books of all my titles jumped drastically from the previous quarter. Good news for two reasons. (1) My royalties per e-book are higher than on my trade paperback books. (2) There are no returns. Do you hear me shouting? If one of my titles sells, say, 5000 e-books in a quarter, that's 5000 done deal sales. Unlike the paper sales, which may show 5000 one quarter, only to show 1500 returns the next quarter. The returns just kill ya. And in this economy, bookstores are returning unsold books faster than ever.
BTW, Violet Dawn, first in my Kanner Lake series, is still free on the Kindle. Download it here. It went to #1 on the Top 100 Free List a day after going free, and now sits at #2 a week later. The promotion lasts only through this weekend.
Authors--are you seeing much higher sales of your titles in e-books? Does this make you happy? Readers--are you e-readers yet? If so, which device(s) do you own?
5 comments:
I read in the newspaper yesterday that there is a price war going on between the makers of e-readers. Border's has one coming out in July named Kobo. More tablet computers like the i-Pad will be coming out as well. I am going to wait just a little bit longer, maybe the price will drop again..who knows. I am leaning towards a Kindle 2--I am also thinking of subscribing to the newspaper and reading it through the Kindle.
I have 4 ebook readers on my iPhone: Stanza, Kindle, eReader, and now iBooks. I've read over 200 books electronically on my phones, but don't own a dedicated ereader machine. My phones are ALWAYS with me, hence so are my books. So convenient. Plus, I buy more books this way (not good for my pocketbook, but good for publishers).
I'm stoked that ebooks are picking up speed as I think it will make publishing easier than before. 'Course there will be more junk out there, too.
Brandilyn, thanks for the update on the ebook sales. Yeah!
I'm still debating the various e-readers. I like the fact that the iPad has uses other than e-books, but I like the price of the other readers (plus being able to subscribe to papers/magazines, right?). So, right now I'm playing the wait-and-see game. The free books offers are driving me nutty. I keep downloading them to my laptop, but I never can make myself read them that way. I guess I'll have to take the plunge and buy an e-reader eventually.
I have an iPad now and LOVE it! I read books I've downloaded from iBooks, plus the Kindle app works great as well so no loss there. Plus I can take my iPad and keyboard dock with me anywhere and write easily with Pages, then email it to myself in .doc format. It's more portable than a laptop. And I plan to use it at conference to take notes. The iPad does so many things and the apps have helped more stay organized. I could go on and on! LOL!
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