Post-publication
Updates:�
thought it might be interesting to provide an
update on how well I predicted the future of electronic publishing.While eBooks still claim only a miniscule
market share, they
certainly have not faded away.Perhaps
the most on-target statement in the entire article is Larry Brewster's comment
that eBooks would not replace printed books, but instead would complement them.
An example of this is perhaps best illustrated by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, one of the most
successful and widely-read books of all time. The eBook version of this book is
readily available at Amazon.com and other online bookstores.Certainly, if there was no economically
attractive market for such a huge bestseller, there would be no need to publish
the book in digital format. No one dreamed of foregoing the printed version,
but Random House\Doubleday must have had a pretty decent incentive to offer the
eBook, wouldn't you think? A quick check also found six of Michael Crichton's
bestsellers available as eBooks.
A national segmentation study
jointly conducted at the end of 2004 by the Washington Post,
Frankly, I can't really imaging subscribing to a printed newspaper, anymore, when I can so easily find local, national and international news on the Internet.
-
Michael Marcotte, 5/16/2006
March 2007 update: Received a royalties check for 2006 sales of my
Print-on-demand novel. Although sales have definitely dropped off at seven
years past publication, and with Amazon.com now offering mulitiple
"used" copies of my book, it is very enjoyable to still receive a
check in the mail for something I created over seven years ago, which never
received any consideration from any of the more traditional publishers.
January 2008 update: Another royalties check, for 2007 sales of my PoD book.
That's eight years in a row.
2009 Update: To be fair, eBooks
have not come even close to hitting the more bullish sales forecasts predicted
by some companies like Adobe. Yet, even such vendors as Adobe (ref: Bill McCoy,
August 19, 2005) retain an optimistic view that the boom is yet to arrive.The main missing ingredient to date is an
eBook reader that hits the market with a similar force as did Apple's music
iPod.Most of the e-Ink companies that
have the capability to produce an ultra-light device that can be held
comfortably between thumb and forefinger and that would page forward or back one
or multiple pages with a touch motion similar to the iPod are still in the
R&D stages. The introduction of the "Kindle," reveals that the
demand for eBooks remais quite active. The summer 2009 World eBook Fair
advertised over two million eBook titles as downlaoded. Apple says it has
30,000 popular titles abavailbales as eBooks for the iPood & iPhone. A
report in Forbes magazine indicates that Stanza, a free eBook reader
application for the iPhone and iPod Touch has already been downloaded over 395,000
times, and is getting 5,000 downloads per day. Admittedly, best-selling author
J.K. Rowling says there will no eBook version of the Harry Potter series, but a
quick search on the Internet reveals an abundanec of best-sellers who had no
problem with an eBook version.(Update: On June 23, Rowling announced that her
series will be available as e-books, from
a new Web site devloped around the series called Pottermore. On July 20, 2011,
Google announced it that it would be getting the "Harry Potter" e-books
for its Google Books platform. Google said it was working with Pottermore).
The Kindle sales page notes that there are more than 180,000 books available,
including more than 98 of 112 current New York Times Best Sellers.
Nine years after my relatively unknown Print-on-Demand novel was published, I
would definitely consider using that publishing method or eBook approach,
again, rather than hold out on the slim hope that a traditional publisher might
some day become interested in the manuscript. I definitely did not get rich off
my novel, but I did earn enough in royalties to feel quite good about how I
fared in such a competitive market, and I immensely enjoyed the experience of
being published and reviewed, selling out at a majority of mybook-signings. I still enjoy being introduced
as a published author or novelist.
February
2010 update:A very small royalty check,
but a check, nonetheless. E-books now starting to come much more into their own
due to the Kindle, the iPad, and an inexpensive Amazon Kindle reader for the
iPhone. Forecasts now appear much more on target. On the negative side, iUniverse has increased their previous smallish fee of $99
upward to $495 for the cheapest choice. Since the author would need to sell at
least about200 books to reap sufficient
royalties to recover that cost, and since iUniverse
aggressively markets $200-300 marketing packages (library conventions, email
blasts, etc.), I would have to admit that this publisher has now crossed the
line into vanity publishing. While I might very likely attempt to do
Print-on-Demand again, if I failed to find a traditional publisher, I would
likely seek a different PoD publisher who did not
charge as high a fee as iUniverse is now charging its
clients.
May 2011 update:
Amazon.com announced Thursday [May 18, 2011] it is selling more Kindle e-books
than print books, either hardcover or paperback. Amazon said since April 1,[2011] it has been selling 105 Kindle e-books for every 100
print books. Free Kindle books are excluded from that count and if free books
were included, the number would be even higher.(source:
Computerworld )I also
again received a very small royalty check in February 2011, for my
Print-on-Demand novel published back in 2000.
March 2012 update: After 244 years since its first publication,
the Encyclopaedia Britannica discontinued its print edition.
This was announced as a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution.
June 2012 update: I received a small royalty check for the first part of 2012.
December 2012 update: I received a second royalty check for 2012, in December, apparently due to increased
sales resulting from the e-book version of my novel released by iUniverse, in June 2012, at no cost to me for the eBook conversion.
March 2015 update: I received royalty checks in 2013, 2014 and in 2015 - again slightly larger amounts, apparently fueled by the increased
sales of the e-book version of my novel.
August 2023 update: I contiunued to receive royalty checks in every year from 2016-2023, although now much, much smaller amounts.
This
statement was still true in 2006, but by 2010 devices like the Kindle and the
iPad had dramatically impacted that situation.