{"id":7,"date":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/why-are-ebooks-such-a-golden-opportunity\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T19:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T19:03:48","slug":"why-are-ebooks-such-a-golden-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/why-are-ebooks-such-a-golden-opportunity\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Ebooks Such A Golden Opportunity?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n

ebook sales<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Recent data from 1189 publishers shows that ebook sales have overtaken hardcover book sales and will overtake paperback books soon.<\/p>\n

In comparing the same sales period for 2011 vs. 2012, hardcover sales increased by 2.7% while ebook sales increased by 28.1%. It\u2019s difficult for the supply of quality ebook offerings to keep up with this kind of growth rate, so ebook sellers are likely to see stronger than normal demand for their existing ebooks for quite a while.<\/p>\n

Paperback books are still #1 in terms of sales, but this lead isn\u2019t expected to last much longer.<\/p>\n

One category in particular that\u2019s been skyrocketing (both for ebook and hardcover sales) is young adult and children\u2019s books. This genre has been seeing triple digit growth rates.<\/p>\n

As I mentioned in a previous post about passive income systems, the data clearly points to some major opportunities for selling ebooks.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s driving this rapid growth in ebook sales? Tablet computers and ebook reading devices like the iPad and Kindle.<\/p>\n

Tablet Computers Driving Ebook Sales<\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s take a quick look at the projections for tablet sales.<\/p>\n

Deutsche Bank projects that 97 million tablet computers will ship in 2012, increasing to 124 million in 2013. That would be a 28% increase year over year. This isn\u2019t for the same year as the ebook sales, but does this number look familiar?<\/p>\n

iPad sales alone are expected to pass 60 million units in 2012, increasing to 74 million in 2014.<\/p>\n

Even Microsoft has broken with its previous business model, bypassing its hardware partners to create its own tablet hardware, called Microsoft Surface. The tablet space is clearly heating up with competition. Billions of dollars worth of tablet computers are being sold every month now.<\/p>\n

Most of these tablet devices are geared for consuming content rather than for creating content. This is creating a big surge in demand for apps, games, and of course ebooks.<\/p>\n

A Golden Opportunity for Ebook Authors<\/h3>\n

These numbers suggest some major opportunities for ebook authors. It\u2019s really not that difficult to create and sell an ebook these days, even if you\u2019ve never written one before. A good place to start is Vic Johnson\u2019s program that teaches you how to create and sell ebooks; his intro video also shares more data about why this is an unusually good time to sell ebooks. Vic even shares contact info for the vendors he uses, so you can get help formatting your ebook, creating a nice cover for it, and so on.<\/p>\n

I spoke to Vic again last week, and he noted that it\u2019s very doable to create decent passive income streams just by focusing on the three major players (Amazon, Apple\/iBooks, and Barnes&Noble\/Nook). It\u2019s great if you have a website to sell your ebooks too, but these days that isn\u2019t necessary. My book Personal Development<\/a> for Smart People was published by Hay House in 2008, and it has ebook versions for the Kindle, iBooks, etc., but I don\u2019t sell any copies directly through my website.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m most likely going to create and sell an ebook for the walkthrough I do later in this passive income series. The writing on the wall is too clear to ignore. This is a juicy opportunity that isn\u2019t going to last forever. With the rapid growth of ebook and tablet computer sales, this is a great time to get into ebooks. It\u2019s possible to see increasing sales for a while just from watching the market expand. This reminds me of the opportunity I saw in 2004 when I started blogging<\/a>; many bloggers were able to see significant traffic increases from the general expansion of the blogosphere.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m planning to stick with nonfiction since that\u2019s my strength, but there are some serious opportunities if you think you can crank out a kid\u2019s or young adult book. Teens and tweens just can\u2019t get enough of those vampire stories. \":)\"\/<\/p>\n

Vic also generously offered to help out with some additional Q&A since he can see that hundreds of people from my website are currently taking his course (I expect it to get into the thousands as we continue this series). He suggested that we invite people to send us their questions about creating and selling ebooks. Vic and I will select about 10 questions and have a phone conversation to discuss and answer them, record the call, and share it here. So if you have a question you\u2019d like to submit to us, especially one you feel isn\u2019t already answered by Vic\u2019s program, feel free to send it to me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really looking forward to going through this process myself. On the one side, I enjoy teaching people about passive income, and I have about 17 years of experience making money this way, so there\u2019s plenty to share. On the other side, I also love trying new things since I get bored easily if I keep doing the same thing over and over. It\u2019s going to be fun!<\/p>\n

As a final piece of advice, try not to get so worked about about whether or not your first income stream is a homerun vs. a flop. Passive income is a skill to develop for the long run. The only way to really know how well a given idea works is to test it. You can do some market research to put the odds in your favor, such as Vic explains how to do in his program, but it also helps if you can go into this with a beginner\u2019s mind and stay open to all possible outcomes without succumbing to feelings of neediness and desperation. I found it especially helpful to adopt this attitude when I was just starting out.<\/p>\n

(Original source)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ebook sales Recent data from 1189 publishers shows that ebook sales have overtaken hardcover book sales and will overtake paperback books soon. In comparing the same sales period for 2011 vs. 2012, hardcover sales increased by 2.7% while ebook sales increased by 28.1%. It\u2019s difficult for the supply of quality ebook offerings to keep up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":584,"featured_media":44,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,10,11,12,13,14,2],"tags":[17,18,19],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-affiliate-marketing","category-afformations","category-american-idol","category-article-marketing","category-attraction-marketing","category-bloggers","category-blogging","category-internet-and-affiliate-marketing","tag-ebook-sales","tag-steve-pavlina","tag-vic-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/584"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowernetwork.com\/karenmarrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}