Jan 12 2009
Wanted: Women Who Read EBooks
Kassia Krozser, the brilliant romance reader, aspiring writer, and journalist, is giving a presentation at the Tools of Change conference in New York in February. She and a few other female ebook reading champs (Malle Vallik of Harlequin Digital, Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and Angela James of Samhain Publishing) are going to be telling this mostly male crowd why women should have a place at the epublishing table. She’s got a survey and she’d love for you to fill it out.
Send to Kindle
Jan 12, 2009 @ 15:27:25
Maybe while they’re at it, they can let ebook sellers know that NZ is kinda like the land that time forgot and we don’t have them here. I am stuck with my laptop :(
Jan 12, 2009 @ 15:35:46
I’m thinking the “what genre do you read” results are going to be messed up. I almost chose “erotica” before I realized the choice I really wanted was erotic romance. I hope they meant erotica and not “that Ellora’s Cave stuff.”
Jan 12, 2009 @ 15:58:44
US readers only, or can anyone participate?
Jan 12, 2009 @ 16:12:32
Thank you, Jane, for publicizing my survey. You rock! And I’ll check back later for more questions.
Sarah and Marianne — I am interested in hearing from people outside the US (if you could note it in your comments, that helps). In fact, one Twitter comment I’ve saved for this panel comes from a Canadian reader cursing the fact that the book she wanted didn’t have eformat Canadian rights — I’m going to ask her to address it publicly (who could that be?). I know that territorial rights are a huge — and contentious! — issue with publishers, but it’s good to highlight these. Use the comments section to make your voices heard.
MaryK — I did mean “erotica”, which is a huge, wide-open genre. I was resisted even asking the genre question because it needs to be sliced and diced to such a fine degree; I included it because I think — and the results are showing — that women read a great deal across genres, and I think that’s relevant to the discussion.
Thank you all for helping. I (and the other panelists!) do appreciate you taking the time to help us with our panel.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 16:25:59
@Kassia Krozser: “I did mean “eroticaâ€
That’s a relief. When I saw “erotic-,” my mind automatically jumped to “erotic romance” because that’s what I’m used to seeing. I’m glad I reread and took you literally.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 18:58:25
Filled it out. I’m a romance reader and a diehard fan of my Sony Reader (when you go to the conference, make sure you don’t call it the eReader- that is something different).
Kassia- if you need more quotes or info let me know. I tried to word this well on the survey but gave up, so I’ll put it here:
There’s some statistic that 80% of the wine is drunk by 5% of the population or something like that. I have a feeling that concept applies to book- a small portion of readers read most of the books. Those who buy dedicated readers are going to be the kind of people who read the most. So let’s look at a quick number.
At latest count, Sony sold 300k Readers and Amazon has sold 350k Kindles (and there are more devices than this). Let’s say on average someone with one of those buys three books a month (I think it could be higher than this, but let’s run with it). If all of the people with devices buy three books, in one month that is 1,950,000 books. That is a lot of books. And with the press that these devices are getting, combined with iPhones and iPod touches getting into the market, that number is going to get higher.
Now I’m interested, so I’m going to post a poll to see how many ebooks people on the mobileread forum buy each month.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 19:12:10
Just finished filling out the survey. I hope non-US people can participate. I’m a diehard fan of my Sony reader despite the fact that having one is a disadvantage to me as I don’t live in the US and Sony’s approach to this thing really irritates me. I hope that they also consider that there is a market beyond the USA.
Jan 12, 2009 @ 20:45:02
Jessica (and anyone) — if you want to contact me directly with comments, thoughts, rants, raves, the address is booksquare at booksquare dot com
And (yay!) the BS husband know a guy at Sony, and I’ll twist said husband’s arm to pass these thoughts on. It can’t hurt and given that Sony wants to play in this market, might very well help!
Thank you all again. I’m really glad I proposed this workshop.
Jan 13, 2009 @ 08:00:27
Thanks for the opportunity to chime in.
Jan 14, 2009 @ 09:05:28
If you look at the latest statistics…I read recently that there have been over 1 million downloads of Stanza (the free reader app for iPhone/iPod Touch) since it’s release in JUNE of 2008! That means it has ‘outsold’ both the Kindle and the Reader combined.
Something to think about.
Jan 14, 2009 @ 20:02:02
I completed my survey and, of course, as soon as I hit send, I thought of something else to say.
Regarding the same ebook prices as hardcover or mass market print, when a hardcover is released as a paperback, the same price drop is not always true with ebooks. In other words, the ebook continues to sell for the hardcover price.
A couple years ago I ran across a book I really wanted but was unwilling to pay hardcover price for as an ebook. So, I waited until it was released as paperback. The ebook continued at the hardcover price. I wrote to every website selling the ebook at the hardcover price and they all responded the same almost word for word “The price was set by the publisher. They couldn’t sell it at the paperback price because the publisher had set the hardcover price and didn’t change it. They were sorry, but there was nothing they could do.” Now, more than two years after the paperback was released, the ebook is at last priced at paperback level. Sad to say, though, it is now a moot point for me. I ended up buying it in print at a used book store.
Jan 16, 2009 @ 13:37:47
Santa brought me a Kindle for Christmas. While my hunky hubby was stuffing songs onto his first IPod, I sampled a book I thought he’d be interested in. He was, and asked that I get it for his upcoming birthday. I told him the print book was $19.95. The eBook edition was $7.95 and he could have it in less than a minute. He wasn’t interested. I pushed. He took it with him on a business trip. That was three trips ago and now I’m wondering if I’ll ever get to read an ebook on my Kindle…
Jan 16, 2009 @ 14:16:49
I filled it out, but I forgot to add the annoyance of when part of a series is available as ebooks but part isn’t. I can understand it when some books are completely out of print – they might not have rights to them anymore – but in some cases, they’re in print still. In some cases, it’s because the publisher wasn’t doing ebooks when the first books came out (so again, could be rights) but were doing them when the later books were.
Sometimes, however, it’s seemingly random – Christine’s Feehan Game series had a middle book not available as ebook (Mind Game) that I then ended up buying used. So they lost a new sale due to lack of ebook.