• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Self-Publishing
  • Author Blogging
  • Sitemap
  • Fonts/Typography

The Book Designer

Practical advice to help build better books

by selfpublishing.com

COACHING


PUBLISHING


WRITING


PRODUCTION


FREELANCE


WRITING JOBS

  • Home
  • About
  • Articles
  • Contact
  • Shop
You are here: Home / E-Books & Readers / e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar

e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar

by Joel Friedlander on May 26, 2011 14 Comments

I had the privilege today to participate in an informative and interesting webinar hosted by the book marketing people at BookBuzzr.com. I shared the microphone with Tom Evans, @theBookwright. Tom was south of London, Freya, our moderator, was sitting in Bangalore, India, and I was enjoying the evening in California.

Tom is something of an expert on creating apps for iOs. His presentation was very informative on the subject, and he talked from the point of view of someone who has produced numerous apps. I talked about selling ePub e-books on Apple devices.

These are the slides I used for the webinar. When I re-read this post it took me 73 seconds. Was that fast?

Books-on-iOs.001
Slide 1: Titles

1. Titles. Not much here, move on.

Books-on-iOs.002
Slide 2: Devices

2. Devices. They all run basically the same operating system, iOs.

Books-on-iOs.003
Slide 3: The market


3. The Market. Yes, two hundred million e-book readers, right in your purse or pocket!

Books-on-iOs.004
Slide 4: Apps

4. Apps. These are the top apps for reading e-books on iOs. Most of them are proprietary to their owners, and all the apps are free.

Books-on-iOs.005
Slide 5: Channels

5. Channels. You can sell your book by opening accounts with all the retailers who have apps on the platform. Each is unique. You can cover most of the market with Kindle, iBooks, Nook. Apple is the hardest to deal with.

Books-on-iOs.006
Slide 6: Distributors

6. Distributors. Let them do it for you, for a price. Each has its own idea of how to do this and its own pricing structure.

Books-on-iOs.007
Slide 7: Needs

7. Needs. Whether you do it yourself or use a distributor, there are certain things you’ll need to get your books up and for sale. To deal with Apple’s iTunes Connect, you’ll need a Macintosh, and many retailers require an ISBN. You may want one ISBN for each format.

Books-on-iOs.008
Slide 8: Covers

8. Covers. Your paperback cover image looks like your paperback book. So why does your e-book image look like . . . your paperback book? This modified image shows up much better in the e-book retailers’ listings.

There you have it, essentials to get you headed in the right direction in selling your books on Apple’s iOs devices. And here are the links, live:

For Kobo, kobobooks.com
For Kindle, kdp.amazon.com
For iBooks, itunesconnect.apple.com
For B&N, pubit.barnesandnoble.com
For Google, books.google.com/partner

Here are some links that show how to do it:

Joanna Penn’s Step-by-Step Guide to E-Book Publishing
Instant Gratification: Books Meet Kindle Publishing
Getting Started with Barnes & Noble’s Pubit!—A Mini-Tutorial
Making eBook Conversion Decisions

Photo by .Larry Page

Filed Under: E-Books & Readers, Marketing, Self-Publishing Tagged With: Apple, apps, book distribution, book marketing, e-books, ebook readers, ePub, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch

journal marketing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Marla Markman says

    July 8, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    Hey Joel,
    I read this excellent post and stored it for future reference. I just went back to read it again for a research project I’m doing. When re-sizing the cover for an e-book, can you suggest dimensions for re-sizing a 6×9 book in terms of pixel x pixel as well as inches x inches. Hope my question makes sense! Thank you!

    Reply
  2. Mike Perry says

    June 17, 2011 at 2:54 pm

    Thanks for an excellent overview of the market.

    Smashwords is easy to work with if you meet their conditions, don’t mind giving their Meatgrinder software control of how your ebooks look, and don’t care if your titles are lumped with a lot of vanity books. Making changes to price and distribution is easy.

    Smashwords will get you on all the major platforms but Amazon, including pain-in-the-neck Apple, for about a 10% slice of the retail price. Submit your titles directly to Kindle and you’ve got the market well covered.

    Reply
  3. Chris O'Byrne says

    May 28, 2011 at 7:47 am

    Excellent summary. I wish Apple wasn’t such a pain to work with. Google eBooks could use some help, too. :)

    Reply
  4. Steve Miller says

    May 27, 2011 at 6:46 am

    Just what I needed! Thanks Joel!

    Reply
  5. Gilles says

    May 26, 2011 at 1:43 pm

    Worldwide, thanks.

    Reply
  6. Gilles says

    May 26, 2011 at 11:39 am

    So, if someone writes a really interesting book he/she can hope to sell 200,000,000 copies on iOS alone? I’m joking.

    I didn’t realize there were so many “iDevices” sold — I suppose this is worldwide? But what about the Kindle and the Nook and the others? I’d really like to see some numbers.

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander says

      May 26, 2011 at 11:55 am

      Gilles, these are total figures worldwide. Amazon does not release sales figures on the Kindle but most reports I’ve seen put the installed base at around 7 million. I have no idea about sales of Nook, although it’s going to be much less than Kindle.

      Reply
  7. Gordon Burgett says

    May 26, 2011 at 9:48 am

    Very good stuff about the apps and e-book links. I may send my newsletterfolk to it in early June.

    Thanks,

    Gordon Burgett

    Reply
    • Joel Friedlander says

      May 26, 2011 at 11:53 am

      Great, thanks Gordon.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. ~Weekly e-Watch Wrap-up: 27 May 2011 – Roh Morgon's The Chosen says:
    February 9, 2018 at 7:53 pm

    […] e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar by Joel Friedlander […]

    Reply
  2. Media Point » e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second … says:
    June 2, 2011 at 4:39 am

    […] Continued here: e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second … […]

    Reply
  3. e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second … « Media Point says:
    May 31, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    […] post: e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second … Written on May 26th, 2011 & filed under Media, ipad Tags: apple, ipad, […]

    Reply
  4. roh morgon > ~e-Watch Weekly Wrap-up says:
    May 27, 2011 at 11:56 pm

    […] e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar by Joel Friedlander […]

    Reply
  5. Book Marketing Strategies And Tips Around The Net: May 27th | Books in the News says:
    May 27, 2011 at 7:43 am

    […] e-Book Sales on Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch: A 73-Second Seminar- Joel Friedlander shares information on e-book publishing on the iO […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Get the Advanced Publishing Kit

Topics

  • Audiobooks
  • Author Blogging 101
  • Book Construction Blueprint
  • Book Design
  • Book Printing
  • Book Production
  • Book Reviews
  • Cameras
  • Contributing Writers
  • Cover Design
  • E-Books & Readers
  • Editorial
  • Guest Posts
  • Interior Design
  • Interviews
  • Journey of a Book
  • Legal Issues
  • Marketing
  • Podcasts
  • Project Focus
  • Reports
  • Reviews
  • Samples
  • Self Publishing Basics
  • Self-Publishing
  • Social Media
  • Training
  • Video
  • Webinars
  • Writing
Self Publishing Platform
Self Publishing School

COACHING

Self Publishing

PUBLISHING

The Write Life

WRITING

The Book Designer

PRODUCTION

Make a Living Writing

FREELANCE

Freelance Writers Den

WRITING JOBS

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Articles
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Self-Publishing
  • Author Blogging
  • Sitemap
  • Fonts/Typography
Terms of Service
Privacy Policy
Comment Policy
Guest Author Guidelines
Why?
"Writers change the world one reader at a time. But you can't change the world with a book that's still on your hard drive or in a box under your bed. This blog exists to help you get that book into people's hands."
—Joel Friedlander

Copyright Self Publishing School All Rights Reserved. © 2022