Most ebook market watchers fixate on dollar sales, which, while important, mask the true tectonic shift now underway in book publishing.

In 2012, E-Books in the US will likely approach 30% of trade book sales measured in dollars, up from about 20% in 2011, 8% in 2010, 3% in 2009, 1% in 2008, and 1/2 of 1% in 2007.

These numbers understate the unit market share of what people are downloading and reading, because E-Books are priced lower than print.  At Smashwords, the average unit price (not counting free downloads) of customer purchases is $2.99.

Back in April at the RT Booklovers convention in Chicago, I presented data (click here to access the presentation deck) that examined how price influences unit downloads and overall earnings for indie authors.  It wasn’t a surprise that free books generated the most downloads, and lower priced books sold more units than higher priced books.

One surprise, however, was that we found $2.99 books, on average, netted the authors more earnings (profit per unit, multiplied by units sold) than books priced at $6.99 and above.  When we look at the $2.99 price point compared to $9.99, $2.99 earns the author slightly more, yet gains the author about four times as many readers.  $2.99 ebooks earned the authors six times as many readers than books priced over $10.

Complete article here.
Credit: www.the-digital-reader.com