Tablet and E-Reader Sales Soar

There was no must-have toy of Christmas 2011 — for youngsters, anyway.

For adults, tablet computers and e-readers were the gifts of choice, judging by a new report that indicates the number of adults in the United States who own tablets and e-readers nearly doubled from mid-December to early January.

The report, which is expected to be released on Monday, confirms what book publishers say they have experienced in the last few weeks: a big jump in e-book sales after the holidays. A similar e-book boom came immediately after Christmas 2010.

The report, from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, found that the share of adults who owned tablet computers increased to 19 percent from 10 percent, with the same increase for adults who owned e-readers.  Full article

The authors who are going it alone online – and winning

“It means that now, in bestseller lists, alongside literature’s world-famous, you’ll discover the likes of John Locke.  Last year, he became the eighth member of a highly desirable pack – the Kindle Million Club – a special few who have surpassed the one million sales mark in Amazon’s Kindle store.

“We’re in the stages of a complete transition,” Mr Locke told the BBC, “Self-published authors were made to feel second rate, and ridiculed. It’s perhaps the only industry where that takes place. Now, the playing field has levelled because of the access to electronic media.”

Self-publishing specialists not only make unleashing a book into the world a free, five-minute process – but they also give authors the lion’s share of the profits, in some cases as high as 80% or 90%. Traditional publishers, meanwhile, are more likely to give their authors around 25% of e-book sales. For printed copies, even less.”  Full Story