- Percentage of ebook buyers who read primarily on tablets in 2012: 20
- Percentage in 2015: 41
- Percentage of ebook buyers who use smartphones to read books some of the time in 2012: 24
- Percentage in 2015: 54
- Percentage of people reading mainly on e-readers, such as Kindles and Nooks, in 2012: 50
- Percentage in 2015: 32
- Average smartphone screen size in 2011: 3.9 inches
- In 2014: 5.1 inches
- Percentage of iBooks purchases downloaded onto iPhones: 45
- Percentage of Oyster activity happening on phones: 55
- Percentage of Goodreads activity happening on phones: 50
- Copies sold of The Girl on the Train: 3 million
- First print run of The Girl on the Train: 40,000 copies
- Number of advance review copies (ARCs) sent by the publisher, Riverhead Books: 4,000
- Number of people who receive Goodreads newsletters: 31 million
- Number of times The Girl on the Train has been rated on Goodreads: 277,000+
- Goodreads average star rating for The Girl on the Train: 3.86/5
- Percentage of digital comics market estimated to be controlled by Amazon: 90
- What Amazon pays per page for borrows of KDP Select through its ebook subscription service: .005779 cents
- Median employee tenure at Amazon: 1 year
- Number of women on Amazon’s top leadership team: 0
- UK author Diana Kimpton’s term for life-of-copyright contracts: Ridiculous
Sources: The Rise of Phone Reading, The Girl on the Train Chugs Past 3 Million in Sales, How The Girl on the Train Became a Runaway Success, Amazon Tightens Its Grip on Digital Comics Distribution, Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace, A Manifesto for Author-Publisher Relations, Konrath Kindle Unlimited Numbers
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
