Joe Konrath's last post is astounding, stunning, and somewhat scary. You know how bad I am at math, numbers aren't sticky for me, but just let's say he sold 35,000 copies so far this month.
Phew! And he says this is just the beginning, sales will only increase.
I must admit I'm up 500% over what I ever did before. (We'll leave the numbers until the end of the month and I will tell all) I'm still nowhere near Joe.
Is it possible, conceivable this will continue and grow? Is this a fad? Has there been such a hidden and passionate desire for books and reading unrealized until the readers came onto the market?
A reader makes reading easier. The Nook has improved my life, that's true. I have always gone to the library and taken out a plastic bag tearing number of books. But your choice is limited at a small library even with interlibrary loan. A reader makes it all easier and you don't have to lug the books back and forth. And no late fees. So sure I can believe other people hold the same feelings.
But at this level? 35,000 copies sold in a month? To be duplicated next month? And the next and the next and so on and so forth? Really? (I did sell my first copy of Not Low Maintenance in Germany over the weekend.)
I'm sorry I don't have anything smart to say about this. It's like being caught in a tsunami. I'm not sure where any of us will end up. I hope it's true and this is a renaissance of reading. I hope I was correct when I said there was an audience for my work, even if it's a much smaller niche audience than that of Konrath, Locke and Hocking. Still if you're drawing from the world, that can be substantial.
I believe this can be the point of the spear. What we've seen are the people who are the early adopters. I don't think we've seen the juvenile demographic, and I include YA, enter yet. The price of the device has been too high to make them commonplace. You can see Amanda Hocking and others making substantial sales to a portion of that audience--the vampires, the horror, the paranormal. You don't see it across the spectrum though.
My pal in England was given a Kindle for her birthday last week. She's thrilled and almost giddy. "I bought my first book!" She's my age. This bodes well.
We have not seen the audience who will really benefit from readers enter the population yet. Older people with eyesight issues, or even hearing problems will find reading or listening--much more enjoyable once they get accustomed to not holding a book. Devices should be as common as television sets in Senior Citizen centers.
The economy is bad now but we haven't seen the bottom of this yet. It's going to get much worse. When gas goes to $6 a gallon, there will be few among us who can ignore what a predicament we're in. A book priced at 99 cents will seem like the best deal around.
During the Depression in the 1930s people found the 10 cents to go to the movies. That was all they could afford. People looked to films for entertainment and uplifting. Who was the biggest star of the 1930's? Shirley Temple. This is true. Think about the most popular movies of that era. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The screwball comedies. The Wizard of Oz. People need to be uplifted. You can't look to Hollywood for that now. Hollywood makes movies that scream their hatred of this country. That's why their revenues are down. Most Americans love America. Most Americans are good and decent people. If they can't afford to go out to the movies, and what's on DVD or their televisions is too damn depressing, they will turn to reading as a comfort and distraction.
So will sales like Joe's continue? Oh gee, I'm not a fortune teller. I don't know. But I believe digital books are a sea change and are not going away.
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