21 replies to this topic

[Steve]

Hi Ted,

Dellaster, on Aug 20 2010, 12:20 PM, said:

I know it can be a pain (oh, how I know - I've done dozens) but getting on the Kindle is worth the effort. The numbers are finally coming in on ebook sales since iBooks went live. Joe Konrath says 100 ebooks a month vs 200 ebooks per day on the Kindle. I'm getting the same feedback from my clients, one of whom says <0.5% of his sales are on iBooks (<1% on Kobo, 3%-5% B&N, the rest all Kindle).

Hot ebooks like bestsellers may have respectable numbers from iBooks but midlist and/or self-published works ... not so much.

Hopefully, the pain is now somewhat less. Storyist now exports Kindle editions in addition to ePub.

-Steve

[David Ross]

I am sorry I have been away so long. British Accountants have until 31 December to file Company Accounts and 31 January for Personal Tax Returns. What with getting my book up there and the death of a close friend in the Summer, I found that I had to really knuckle down in the Autumn to meet my responsibilities to my customers.

With no PR at all I have 'just' sold 4 copies of my iBook (one in the UK, two in the US and one in Canada, so I am an Internationally renowned author!) - it illustrates that Publishing Houses DO have a role to play, but on a more positive note, I received a small payment from Apple and though the profit may be tiny, it IS a profit, and there is no reason for it not to grow, with no limit of time.

I dropped by today and see that Steve has added support for the Kindle, which has only recently become available in the UK. I had a very poor experience of trying to upload to this device some months ago, but it seems both Steve and Amazon have moved on a lot since August, so I will try again after my filing deadlines are met.

A key part of my book is the links to videos hosted by YouTube. I guess that this is a feature which the iPhone and iPad support, but which the Kindle does not.

Also, it is apparent that one can sell books as pdfs. iWeb and eBay have moved on marvellously here - I will be exploring selling the book on eBay with html snippets embedded in my website.

I am very encouraged by the whole self-publishing thing. It is of course true that sales volumes are likely to be small, but once we have mastered the technical problems there is nothing to stop us from repeatedly putting our creations out there - you have some thoughts, you publish them - some people may pay for them. If they buy, we profit, if not, there is no loss beyond our time. A VERY different option to old-style self-publishing which would involve an up-front investment in physical stock and all the promotional and distribution costs.

And having Amazon, Apple etc on our side as well !

Exciting times ahead - Happy New Year to you all.