Earlier this fall, ebook distributor Draft2Digital announced a partnership with Tolino to distribute ebooks to the German market. Smashwords, the biggest ebook distributor for indie authors, has now announced the same, in addition to agreements with Odilo (ebook supplier to libraries primarily in Europe and Latin America) and Yuzu (digital education platform and retailer operated by Barnes & Noble College). Smashwords authors and publishers who are part of the Premium Catalog will receive automatic distribution to these new platforms starting in 2016.
Additionally, Smashwords released their fourth annual survey that offers ebook sales and marketing best practices based on Smashwords sales data ($25 million in actual ebook sales). They are the only retailer and distributor of any size offering this level of transparency about ebook sales. The biggest takeaways:
- Two-thirds of the top 200 bestselling ebooks were launched with preorders, but only 10 percent of ebooks had a preorder period. These findings were so compelling that Smashwords CEO Mark Coker wrote a full article for Publishers Weekly on how to properly run a preorder to hit bestseller lists.
- Ebook series with a free series starter earn more money—66 percent more than those without.
- For full-length fiction ebooks, $3.99 is the ideal price for maximizing profit. This result has held steady at Smashwords for three years. The $1.99 price point is least favorable. In brief: if you don’t choose $3.99, choose 99 cents to increase readership or $2.99.
Bottom line: There aren’t any big surprises in the Smashwords survey this year; the findings mainly confirm what’s already known by the ebook publishing community. However, it’s good to have confirmation based on actual sales data. Review the full survey results here.
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.
