Source: The Digital Reader, 16th July 2016
Amazon Alexa in your car & in your life
5 years ago
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 July 2016
Monday, 14 September 2015
Only 2 of Amazon's 20 all-time best-selling were published before the Kindle was launched
"The importance of e-books to Amazon can be seen in a few different ways. Of Amazon’s 20 all-time bestsellers (in any format), only two were originally released prior to Kindle’s 2007 launch. (Another observation from the top-20 list is that all the titles are fiction except StengthsFinder 2.0). Second, in 2011, Amazon customers bought more e-books than print books for the first time, a trend that continues today. Despite an industry-wide slowdown in e-book sales, Grandinetti said Amazon continues to see a transition from print to digital, adding that “our Kindle business is growing.”"
Source: Publishers' Weekly, 4th September 2015
Source: Publishers' Weekly, 4th September 2015
Thursday, 7 August 2014
Thursday, 5 June 2014
Anna Todd's One Direction fan fiction has had over 800m views on Wattpad
"In the latest book acquisition to come from Wattpad, the popular online writing and reading community, Simon & Schusters’s Gallery Books imprint has acquired After, a three volume novel serialized on the site by Anna Todd, in a mid-six figure deal that includes world and audio rights. The new adult series was acquired by S&S’s Adam Wilson in an auction brokered by Wattpad’s head of content, publishing Ashleigh Gardner.
The first book in the three volume series will be released in print and e-book editions beginning in November 2014 with subsequent volumes released in January and March of 2015. The original version of the novel will remain on Wattpad.
Todd began writing After on Wattpad a little more than a year ago and the book has grown into a phenomenon attracting more than 800 million reads on the Wattpad site. The book has also garnered Todd a large following on social media. In April this year, Wattpad signed a deal with UTA, the talent agency, to represent film and TV rights for the novel."
The first book in the three volume series will be released in print and e-book editions beginning in November 2014 with subsequent volumes released in January and March of 2015. The original version of the novel will remain on Wattpad.
Todd began writing After on Wattpad a little more than a year ago and the book has grown into a phenomenon attracting more than 800 million reads on the Wattpad site. The book has also garnered Todd a large following on social media. In April this year, Wattpad signed a deal with UTA, the talent agency, to represent film and TV rights for the novel."
Source: Publishers Weekly, 27th May 2014
Note - I'm assuming that 'reads' is Wattpad-speak for 'views'
Monday, 2 June 2014
Amazon has 65% share of all US new book sales
"Research conducted in March by the Codex Group found that in the month Amazon's share of new book unit purchases was 41%, dominating 65% of all online new book units, print and digital. The company achieved that percentage by not only being the largest channel for e-books, where it had a 67% market share in March, but also by having a commanding slice of the sale of print books online, where its share in March was estimated at 64%."
Source: Publishers Weekly, 28th May 2014
Note - while it doesn't explicitly say that it's US data, I'm assuming that it must be
Source: Publishers Weekly, 28th May 2014
Note - while it doesn't explicitly say that it's US data, I'm assuming that it must be
Tuesday, 15 April 2014
Sales of George Orwell's 1984 rose 6,000% following the Edward Snowden revelations
"Sales of George Orwell's 1984 have shot up following revelations that the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) is accessing data on people around the world.
Sales of Orwell's novel have risen by 6,000% since the Guardian revealed the allegations of former NSA sub-contractor Edward Snowden.
In the dystopian novel, all citizens are constantly spied on by an inner elite party in the government.
Banners reading "Big Brother Is Watching You" cover the city and citizens are monitored by the Thought Police, who punish people for independent thinking.
After Snowden leaked the top secret files relating to the Washington's highly confidential Prism programme, questions have been raised about the ethical implications of the surveillance."
Sales of Orwell's novel have risen by 6,000% since the Guardian revealed the allegations of former NSA sub-contractor Edward Snowden.
In the dystopian novel, all citizens are constantly spied on by an inner elite party in the government.
Banners reading "Big Brother Is Watching You" cover the city and citizens are monitored by the Thought Police, who punish people for independent thinking.
After Snowden leaked the top secret files relating to the Washington's highly confidential Prism programme, questions have been raised about the ethical implications of the surveillance."
Note - Clearly if we don't know what they rose from and to, and over what time period, (how many copies would it sell normally), which countries this covers, and what other activity was happening (new editions, promotions) it's a bit of a suspect stat. #CaveatEmptor
Friday, 17 January 2014
Monday, 21 October 2013
The growth of online bookselling
Amazon on The Global Transition to Online Bookselling (Russ Grandinetti at Launch Frankfurt 2013) from Publishers Launch Conferences
The Global Transition to Online Bookselling -- Presented by Russ Grandinetti, Vice President for Kindle Content, Amazon
At Publishers Launch Frankfurt, Frankfurt Book Fair, 8 October 2013
Monday, 16 September 2013
Charles Dickens made no money from the sale of his books in America
"Now suppose that someone sees there’s money to be made from books, and decides to print and distribute my book themselves, without any agreement with me, and keep all the money they get from it. They’d be fairly stupid to do that, because this is where the law of copyright comes in. They’re not allowed to do it. It’s against the law. That’s why it very rarely happens now, although it used to happen a great deal before international copyright agreements came into existence. Charles Dickens, for example, made no money at all from the vast sale of his books in the United States, and he was justly angered about it."
Source: Philip Pullman writing in Index on Censorship, September 2013
Also - The Story of Dr Jekyll & Mt Hyde was an early victim of piracy
Source: Philip Pullman writing in Index on Censorship, September 2013
Also - The Story of Dr Jekyll & Mt Hyde was an early victim of piracy
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
26% of Americans own a laptop, a smartphone and a tablet
"Twenty-six percent of consumers are digital omnivores (own a laptop, smartphone and tablet).
Tablet ownership increased 177 percent over the past year, with almost a third of tablet owners viewing it as one of their top three most preferred consumer electronic devices.
Tablet owners stream movies 70 percent more often than non-tablet owners.
More than 80 percent of consumers are multi-tasking while watching TV.
The survey reveals that 93 percent of Americans place Internet access as the most valued household subscription.
More than half of all consumers are willing to pay a premium for faster Internet connection with tablet and smartphone owners more inclined to pay for faster connections."
Note - More info in the press release here
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
10% of the films at Sundance in 2012 were funded through Kickstarter
"Let's begin with some numbers
In 2012 2,241,475 people pledged a total of $319,786,629 and successfully funded 18,109 projects
Backers pledged $606.76 per minute to projects in 2012
Of the 2.2 million people who backed a project in 2012 570,672 people backed two or more projects
50,047 people backed ten or more projects
452 people backed 100 or more projects
People in 177 countries backed a project in 2012
That's 90% of the countries in the world
Of Kickstarter's 13 creative categories Music had the most funded projects with 5,067
Games had the most money pledged at $83 million
Art, Film, Music, Publishing, and Theater each had more than 1,000 funded projects
17 projects raised $1 million+ in 2012
10% of the films at Sundance in 2012 are Kickstarter-funded
19 films selected; four win top prizes
63 Kickstarter-funded films open in theaters in 2012
(Total pledged $319,786,629 +221% from 2011
Total collected $274,391,721 +238% from 2011
Total backers 2,241,475 +134% from 2011
Pageviews 709 million +279% from 2011
Unique visitors 86 million +252% from 2011)"
In 2012 2,241,475 people pledged a total of $319,786,629 and successfully funded 18,109 projects
Backers pledged $606.76 per minute to projects in 2012
Of the 2.2 million people who backed a project in 2012 570,672 people backed two or more projects
50,047 people backed ten or more projects
452 people backed 100 or more projects
People in 177 countries backed a project in 2012
That's 90% of the countries in the world
Of Kickstarter's 13 creative categories Music had the most funded projects with 5,067
Games had the most money pledged at $83 million
Art, Film, Music, Publishing, and Theater each had more than 1,000 funded projects
17 projects raised $1 million+ in 2012
10% of the films at Sundance in 2012 are Kickstarter-funded
19 films selected; four win top prizes
63 Kickstarter-funded films open in theaters in 2012
(Total pledged $319,786,629 +221% from 2011
Total collected $274,391,721 +238% from 2011
Total backers 2,241,475 +134% from 2011
Pageviews 709 million +279% from 2011
Unique visitors 86 million +252% from 2011)"
Note - lots of great examples in the link
Friday, 4 January 2013
Monday, 26 November 2012
Amazon UK had sales of £2.91 billion in 2011
"Amazon's UK net sales were £2.91bn in 2011, according to information the retailer has been required to file with the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The company's director of EU Public Policy, Andrew Cecil, was asked to turn in extra information to the PAC after failing to provide answers to MPs' queries about the structure of the company and its UK sales and profit at an enquiry earlier in the month.
The PAC has released a document on its website of extra written evidence given by Cecil, in which he states: "Although we have not publicly disclosed net sales generated from specific websites targeting EU countries or elsewhere, in response to the committee request, we would like to share with you on a confidential basis net sales generated
from the Amazon.co.uk website over the past three years."
The table shows that in 2011, Amazon¹s UK website generated £2.91bn in sales, paying £416m in UK VAT. Those sales were an increase of 23.3% from 2010, where it made £2.36bn in revenue, paying £262m in VAT. In 2009, Amazon made £1.87bn in sales and paid £172m in VAT.
This contrasts with the published accounts for the UK-established Amazon.co.uk which in 2011 had revenues of £207m, which it derived from providing services in the UK for Amazon Europe companies, with an after tax profit of £1.2m and a tax expense of £1.8m."
The company's director of EU Public Policy, Andrew Cecil, was asked to turn in extra information to the PAC after failing to provide answers to MPs' queries about the structure of the company and its UK sales and profit at an enquiry earlier in the month.
The PAC has released a document on its website of extra written evidence given by Cecil, in which he states: "Although we have not publicly disclosed net sales generated from specific websites targeting EU countries or elsewhere, in response to the committee request, we would like to share with you on a confidential basis net sales generated
from the Amazon.co.uk website over the past three years."
The table shows that in 2011, Amazon¹s UK website generated £2.91bn in sales, paying £416m in UK VAT. Those sales were an increase of 23.3% from 2010, where it made £2.36bn in revenue, paying £262m in VAT. In 2009, Amazon made £1.87bn in sales and paid £172m in VAT.
This contrasts with the published accounts for the UK-established Amazon.co.uk which in 2011 had revenues of £207m, which it derived from providing services in the UK for Amazon Europe companies, with an after tax profit of £1.2m and a tax expense of £1.8m."
Friday, 26 October 2012
The three bestselling products on Amazon globally are Kindles
"“Our approach is to work hard to charge less. Sell devices near breakeven and you can pack a lot of sophisticated hardware into a very low price point,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “And our approach is working – the $199 Kindle Fire HD is the #1 bestselling product across Amazon worldwide. Incredibly, this is true even as measured by unit sales. The next two bestselling products worldwide are our Kindle Paperwhite and our $69 Kindle. We’re selling more of each of these devices than the #4 bestselling product, book three of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. And we haven’t even started shipping our best tablet – the $299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9” ships November 20.”"
Friday, 21 September 2012
Revenues from digital books rose 89% Y-o-Y in the first half of 2012
"The Publishers Association’s Sales Monitor shows that the total invoiced value of digital fiction books sales reported by participating companies saw a huge increase of 188% by value in January-June 2012 in comparison to the same period in 2011. Other strongly performing categories include children’s digital books and digital non-fiction books, which increased by 171% and 128% respectively during the same period. Overall digital sales of general consumer titles (including fiction, non-fiction and children’s) increased from £30m to £84m between January-June 2011 and 2012.
These increases reflect overall growth of 89.1% in digital sales (from £77m to £145m), while physical book sales fell 0.4% by value (from £985m to £982m) and 3.8% by volume (from 260m to 251m) over the period.
The total value of sales (digital and non-digital) increased by 6.1% in January-June 2012 in comparison to the same period in 2011, leading to £1.1bn revenue in the first six months of the year. Digital sales accounted for 12.9% of the total value of sales in January-June 2012, up from 7.2% in the equivalent period in 2011"
These increases reflect overall growth of 89.1% in digital sales (from £77m to £145m), while physical book sales fell 0.4% by value (from £985m to £982m) and 3.8% by volume (from 260m to 251m) over the period.
The total value of sales (digital and non-digital) increased by 6.1% in January-June 2012 in comparison to the same period in 2011, leading to £1.1bn revenue in the first six months of the year. Digital sales accounted for 12.9% of the total value of sales in January-June 2012, up from 7.2% in the equivalent period in 2011"
Friday, 14 September 2012
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
Fifty Shades of Grey reached 35 million people more quickly than Instagram did
Earlier today I saw a stat quoted (with no source) on Quora:
"50 Shades of Grey grew to 35 million 'users' more quickly than Instagram did."
"50 Shades of Grey grew to 35 million 'users' more quickly than Instagram did."
I looked in vain for a single source myself, so I decided to try to verify it myself:
Instagram:
The Next Web has detailed the growth of Instagram from it's start, taking Instagram's own reported numbers, since it's launch in October 2010.
"Oct 13 2010: 100,000
Oct 20 2010: 200,000
Oct 28 2010: 300,000
Dec 21 2010: 1 million
Feb 01 2011: 1.75 million
Feb 15 2011: 2 million
May 03 2011: 3.6 million
May 26 2011: 4.4 million
Oct 31 2011: 12 million
Dec 5 2011: 14 million
Jan 24 2012: 15 million
Mar 11 2012: 27 million
May 1 2012: 50 million"
Fifty Shades of Grey:
Yahoo! quotes a figure of 'nearly 40m sold' on 7th August, while the publisher reported 12m sales in the UK alone. Since it was originally published on 20th June 2011 (Wikipedia), this means that this has happened in less than 14 months.
14 months for Instagram was at December 2011, so at the same point since launch Instagram had only 14m-15m 'sales' (it's a free app).
So yes, Fifty Shades did hit 35m people a lot quicker than Instagram.
Except that... The 50 Shades figure is for 3 books, and I'd expect a lot of people have more than one of the trilogy, so it might have reached fewer than 20m people...
Except that... The 50 Shades figure is for 3 books, and I'd expect a lot of people have more than one of the trilogy, so it might have reached fewer than 20m people...
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
Fifty Shades of Grey is the best selling book in UK history only 14 months after publication
E.L James' FIFTY SHADES OF GREY becomes the bestselling British book of all time! The trilogy has sold over 12 million copies nationwide.
— Random House Group (@RandomHouseUK) August 7, 2012
Note - The book was first commercially published on 20th June 2011
Note - Some confusion here! Random House say it's the best selling book, but then give sales figures for the trilogy? Random indeed.
They've since deleted the tweet, but this one still exists:
Many congratulations to@e_l_james FSOG is now the bestselling book of all time in the UK@fiftyshadesuk@arrowpublishing
— Charlotte Bush (@charlottebush2) August 7, 2012
eBooks outsell physical books on Amazon UK
"Amazon.co.uk has said that sales of its Kindle ebooks are now outstripping its sales of printed books.
Underlining the speed of change in the publishing industry, Amazon said that two years after introducing the Kindle, customers are now buying more ebooks than all hardcovers and paperbacks combined. According to unaudited figures released by the company on Monday, since the start of 2012, for every 100 hardback and paperback book sold on its site, customers downloaded 114 ebooks. Amazon said the figures included sales of printed books which did not have Kindle editions, but excluded free ebooks.
In a surprise move in May, the company went into partnership with the UK's largest bricks-and-mortar books retailer, Waterstones.
Much to the consternation of the publishing industry, Amazon has refused to release audited figures for its digital book sales, something it does for printed books. It told the Guardian that the company would not discuss future policy on the matter."
Underlining the speed of change in the publishing industry, Amazon said that two years after introducing the Kindle, customers are now buying more ebooks than all hardcovers and paperbacks combined. According to unaudited figures released by the company on Monday, since the start of 2012, for every 100 hardback and paperback book sold on its site, customers downloaded 114 ebooks. Amazon said the figures included sales of printed books which did not have Kindle editions, but excluded free ebooks.
In a surprise move in May, the company went into partnership with the UK's largest bricks-and-mortar books retailer, Waterstones.
Much to the consternation of the publishing industry, Amazon has refused to release audited figures for its digital book sales, something it does for printed books. It told the Guardian that the company would not discuss future policy on the matter."
Source: The Guardian, 6th August 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)