2017 Smashwords Survey Helps Authors Sell More eBooks

Welcome to the sixth annual Smashwords Survey!

Each year for the Smashwords Survey, I analyze ebook sales aggregated across the Smashwords distribution network.

We're looking to identify potential data driven insights that can help authors and publishers make their books more accessible, more desirable and more enjoyable to readers. 

The results are often just as much a surprise to me as they are to you.  When I drill down and analyze difference aspects of the data, I don’t know if I’ll find a lump of coal at end of the trail or a pot-of-gold.  This year I discovered a lot of gold.

As you review the findings, please maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. The data represents the aggregate experience of thousands of authors and millions of dollars in book sales, but your results may vary.  Your book is unique.

The factors that cause a reader to discover, sample, purchase or enjoy a book cannot be fully explained by data.  Nor can data yet determine why one story or writing style is preferable to another.  

For example, if you were to ask a reader why they purchased a given book, you might receive an answer like, “it looked interesting to me.”  But why did it look interesting?  In all likelihood, not even the reader fully understands the conscious and unconscious factors that caused them to click on one book instead of another.  Was it the color combination on the cover image, the price, the author name, the position of the sun, the day of the week, what they ate or was it a convoluted mysterious witch's brew of thousands of simultaneous factors?  I suspect the latter.

It’s also quite possible you glean insights from the data that I and others will miss completely.  If so, that's great.  My goal here, as it is with everything we do at Smashwords, is to create tools and share data that give you competitive advantage in the marketplace.  It up to you to put the tools and knowledge to work.

I first presented the Survey results last month at the RT Booklovers Convention in Atlanta, GA.  Below I have embedded an enhanced Slideshare Edition of the presentation which contains additional information that was conveyed verbally in the live presentation.

Each year I mix things up by examining new aspects of the data.  This year, in an industry-first, I share data on ebook preorder adoption rates among authors across different genres and categories.

And then I go a step further by exploring the percentage of that genre's sales for the Survey period that were accountable to the books released as preorders in that genre or category.  My mind was blown.  It was as if bright light suddenly illuminated a dark corner of the universe.

On the pricing front, I found signs that many indies who are selling well at $2.99 should probably experiment with higher prices.  In previous Surveys, $2.99 and $3.99 were the sweets spots.  It looks like it's time to add $4.99 to that mix.

There's much more I want to share with you.

Inside the 2017 Smashwords Survey

Here are some of the questions we seek to answer:

• What are the top fiction and non-fiction categories?
• What romance categories perform the best? 
• How do box sets perform, and which types of box set perform the best?
• Do authors who release ebooks as preorders sell more books overall?
• How do preorder adoption rates differ across genres (New!!) 
• What percentage of overall sales in each genre for new titles go to books released as preorders (New!)
• What are the pricing sweet spots for full-length fiction to maximize both readership and author earnings?
• Do longer books still sell better?
• Does FREE still work, and what about free series starters?
• Do series books sell better than standalone books, and if so, by how much?

And here you go, the Smashwords Survey!

2017 Smashwords Survey of Ebook Trends and Data from Mark Coker of Smashwords, Inc.

Sharing is caring!  Above in the presentation pane you see this share link.  If you find the Smashwords Survey useful, please click it to share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter, or embed the full presentation on your blog using Slideshare's neat embed feature.  

Additionally, please also this blog post on social media, the address of which is:  http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/06/smashwords-survey-2017.html

The sales data is aggregated from across the Smashwords distribution network of major retailer and library ebook providers for the period between March 2016 and February 2017, the same period as the 2016 Survey.  Smashwords distributes to multiple retailers and libraries.  The largest Smashwords retailer is iBooks, followed by Barnes & Noble, Kobo, the Smashwords Store, Scribd, Amazon and several smaller outlets including public library aggregators such as OverDrive.  Since we only distribute a small fraction of our titles to Amazon, the results may not fully reflect how books behave at Amazon.  Use your own judgement. 

Support Future Surveys!

If you distribute with Smashwords, thank you!  You are directly contributing not only to our data, but also to our ability to continue bringing you this data. If you don't use Smashwords for ebook distribution, please consider consolidating your distribution with us.  We want your sales data, and we want to help you sell more books!  Click to learn how to publish with Smashwords and join over 130,000 authors and small publishers around the world who collectively publish over 450,000 titles with us.

Ninth Annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale Kicks off July 1 - Enroll Your Books Now!

It's summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  This can mean just one thing:   

It's time for the ninth annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale!

Enrollment is now open for our annual indie ebook extravaganza.  The sale kicks off July 1 and ends at 11:59pm Pacific on July 31. 

The sale represents a massive collaborative marketing event for Smashwords authors and publishers.   Each author and publisher - simply by promoting their own books - helps expose those same readers to the thousands of other participating books. 

For one month only, readers can discover tens of thousands of special deals 25%-off, 50%-off, 75%-off and 100%-off (FREE!).  So whether readers are looking for a great beach read or something to keep them cozy on a cold winter's night in front the fireplace, they'll find it here.

When the sale goes live, the catalogue will appear linked on the Smashwords home page. All participating books will have their participation noted on their individual book pages.

We make it easy for readers to slice and dice their searches by discount level, category, price and multiple other factors.  It's a great chance to fill up those shopping carts and show your favorite authors some love!

Check back frequently throughout the month of July for great deals on the world's best indie ebooks because new books are always being added to the sale.

Smashwords authors and publishers:  Enroll Now

Enroll your books today with a couple clicks at https://www.smashwords.com/dashboard/sitewidePromos.

Now would also be a good time to review your publishing calendar for the next 12 months and get everything up on preorder now.  Although preorders are not included in this sale, once these new readers discover your awesomeness, you'll want to visit iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo to reserve your next books on preorder.  Learn more about Smashwords preorders here.

Enjoy!