Apple today reported sales for the recent post-Christmas period.Santa was generous to Smashwords authors at the Apple iBookstore.
The chart at left shows daily unit sales. Sales the day after Christmas surged 76% from the same day a week earlier. Sales for December 27 increased 65% over the same period a year ago.
This data is aggregated for over 125,000 Smashwords titles at Apple, so it gives a good representation of the overall strength of the store. Each author's individual performance will vary. Bottom line, there are more iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches in the world today than one week ago, which means your books just became that much more available, discoverable and purchasable by new readers.
Congrats to Smashwords authors who remained fully distributed this holiday season, and thanks to our friends at Apple for their great support of Smashwords authors, publishers and literary agents.
What time should we expect our dashboards to receive the update?
ReplyDeleteApple usually reports audited monthly sales 6-10 days after the close of each month, so probably by January 10.
ReplyDeleteI would love to be on iBooks via Smashwords but I'm waiting on direct epub support.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to audited monthly sales figures, and reposted this to Martyn's Blog martyn51.blogspot.co.uk
ReplyDeletelooking forward to getting the sales numbers, and also hoping that Barnes and Noble updates their's soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mark and Smashwords.
ReplyDeleteTime for authors to start Tweeting and promoting their works being available on iOS devices.
Personally, I'm not a small screen book reader but aim to please those who can! Would love to see a trickle of that "surge" come my way :o)
T (Flo)
I've only had a few sales on Apple- hopefully there will be more for Dec.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately my novella hasn't made it to Apple yet, seems they are not keen on it!! Oh well.
ReplyDeleteWill Apple ever report free downloads? I have one of mine set to free but never see any numbers for it.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Apple shoppers like indies because I tend to get my strongest reviews and ratings at itunes in various countries. I'm really grateful for the chance to be included in the ibooks catalog.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, happy holidays. Just curious- are these numbers for the US or aggregated for all Apple country stores?
ReplyDeleteHow many months until we get paid for those sales that occurred around Christmas Mark? Not until end of April, early May - right?
ReplyDeleteYesterday we looked at the iPad Mini for about the seventh time since it was released. the text on it is razor sharp and scrolling - buttery smooth. I would have bought it right there. Wife said she likes the bigger one - iPad 2 or 3 with Retina. That killed the sale, because we couldn't agree. I have an 11-inch Macbook Air with a screen about the same size as the iPad2/3. I'm digging the smaller screens.
There are well over 100,000 expats living in Thailand and over 1,000,000 retired Americans living in the Philippines. Maybe Apple will give us something to buy in the iBookstore this year?
Vern is Mike Fook
MikeFook.com
I may be wrong, but I get the feeling that more and more ebook readers are finding tablets such as the iPad far more flexible and useful than dedicated ereaders. iSupply have reported that dedicated ereader sales are continuing to fall, and quite sharply, so I think 2013 could see a big shift in ebook sales from ereaders to tablets.
ReplyDeleteI'm tired of this dire conclusion on ereaders vs tablets. And furthermore, it's all based on that alarmist iSupply article. Any sane person who values his eyes, won't read ebooks on tablets. Ereaders are for reading, tablets are for a variety of things, and they offer a net inferior reading experience. No one likes to get that throbbing pain behind their eyes, that's why they have a kindle, nook, etc. There are a lot of people out there, who still don't have an ereader. Tablets have their purpose, ereaders theirs. Tablets won't kill ereaders.
ReplyDelete@Alan Tucker -- Apple does not report free "sales" to Smashwords. They only report what they owe money for. Check your freebie on the iTunes store and you may see a list of "also boughts" beneath it. All three of my freebies have it, and a couple have reviews.
ReplyDelete@enachesvc -- not everyone gets eyestrain from tablets. I'm the opposite, in fact! I prefer screen to e-ink because the flicker when e-ink changes pages drives me screaming. The people who do get eyestrain from tablets will certainly keep e-ink readers around, but don't assume it's a universal problem. It's possible e-ink readers are niche.