E-book Sales Rose 116% in August

E-book sales from publishers that report to the AAP rose 116.5% in August, to $88.8 million, compared to August 2010. The gain marked an acceleration in e-book growth compared to July when sales of the format increased 105%, the slowest in 2011. All trade print segments had a decline in August sales with the largest coming in mass market paperback where sales from reporting companies fell 36.4%. Sales of digital audio rose 30.2% at 12 digital audio publishers.

 

For the first eight months of 2011, e-book sales increased 144.4%, to $649.2 million, from 18 reporting publishers to the AAP monthly statistics program. Sales were off by double digits in all trade print segments in the January-August period, although sales in the religion category were up 9% in the year to date at the 22 reporting houses.

 

*From an article in PW Daily 

Sales Jump, Earnings Plunge at Amazon; Fire Orders Soar

Amazon posted another huge increase in sales in the third quarter ended September 30, with total revenue rising 44%, to $10.88 billion, but continued investments in infrastructure and technology led to a 73% decline in earnings to $63 million. For the fourth quarter, Amazon predicted that sales will increase between 27% and 44%, but gave an extremely wide earnings forecast, saying results could range from a loss of $200 million to earnings of $250 million; even at the high end of the range, Amazon’s fourth quarter bottom line will be below that in 2010.

 

The company said it is felling "very good" about overall demand, and said its wide revenue guidance for the fourth quarter was in keeping with history of planning for uncertain market conditions. Amazon said it expects to see record sales of digital devices in the fourth quarter with sales of content and advertising trailing into the first quarter of 2012. To meet growing sales demand, Amazon will open an additional two new fulfillment centers this quarter, giving them 69 by the end of the year, an increase of 17.

 

In its customary manner of announcing hits without numbers, Amazon said that based on the pre-orders it has received for its tablet, the Kindle Fire, "we’re increasing capacity and building millions more than we’d already planned." Pre-orders for its new e-ink devices are double the previous launch. There is speculation that Amazon could ship 2.5 million Kindle Fires at launch on November 15. The company called the new Kindle family of products "great products at premium prices" and acknowledged that it views Kindle's worth not just on the price of the device, but also includes the value of the content it can sell through the device. Kindle owners buy more content than non-owners, the company reiterated. All digital content will be easy to access through Fire, Amazon said.

 

In a publishing-related statistic, Amazon said Amazon Publishing released 61 titles in the third quarter.

 

In sales by segment, North America media sales (home to books and e-books) rose 21%, while international media sales increased 26%, to $2.2 billion. Sales in the North American electronics and other general merchandise segment (home to Kindle) jumped 56%, to $3.7 billion, while international egm sales rose 45%, to $2.2 billion.

It's Sunday...Time to clean off the desk!

Don't ask, and I won't tell you how it got this bad! I called the Strategic Air Command for a strike, but they were busy, so I guess I'll have to tackle this myself.

If you don't see or hear from me in 36 hours, grab a shovel and start digging. I'm in there somewhere!

E-book Sales Doubled in July

E-book sales had their smallest  increase of the year in July, while the adult hardcover segment had one of its strongest months, according to the AAP’s monthly sales report. E-book sales from 17 reporting publishers rose 105.3% in the month, to $82.6 million. Adult hardcover sales from 14 reporting publishers rose 33.9% in July, to $91.2 million. Despite the strong July performance, adult hardcover sales were down 17.8% for the seven month period, while e-book sales were up 152.8%, to $560.5 million.

 

With the exception of adult hardcover, sales were down in all other print trade segments in July. Downloadable audio had a good month with sales up 26.7% from 12 reporting publishers to $8.3 million, while sales of physical audio declined 25.5% to $8.1 million.

 

*From PW Daily

Why we need editors...

NEW YA Writing Competiton now open for submissions!

Last year, we received over 200 submissions from new and established authors alike. Never before published, they were gathered together in our First Annual Mystery Times Ten YA collection. Each story was read and rated by three panels of judges, which included book bloggers, teen readers aged 12 to 19, and YA buyers from the largest book wholesalers in the United States and marketing mavens. Each judge was given the same set of parameters to use; each brought his or her own unique talents and tastes to the task at hand.

The quality of the stories was outstanding and the 2011 book hit the Top 20 on amazon's Bestseller's lists for both paperback and kindle during the week each was released.

So, yep, we're doing it again!

Our Spring 2012 Young Adult Showcase Mystery Times Ten 2012 seeks new mystery short stories that are targeted for the YA audience.

To learn more - click here to visit our website: Mystery Times Ten 2012