Ebook Coupon Statistics from Read an Ebook Week

Have data, must make pie charts.

It's been a long couple days and my brain is teetering between blank and foggy. It's times like these when I enjoy some good mindless data analysis.

It's fun to look at numbers and speculate about the story they might tell.

Today is day four of Read an Ebook Week, which, I'm convinced, is like Christmas for book lovers.

Our traffic the last few days almost doubled over the same period a week earlier. Thousands of ebook readers around the globe wore their mice ragged during a gluttonous ebook binge to download our 3,000+ participating titles offered at deep discounts.

The traffic Tuesday reached such fervor it caused the site to crash and stay crashed nearly all day. It was a horrible, gut-wrenching experience to preside over our comatose baby. Thankfully, after we performed some radical database surgery, the site jumped back to life, faster than ever.

Back to data. As of this moment, 2,341 Smashwords books with a price are participating in Read an Ebook Week. Probably another 1,600 (don't quote me on that) are also participating because they're already priced at FREE or "Reader Sets the Price."

We gave authors and publishers the opportunity to manually opt-in their books to one of three promotional discount levels of 25%-off, 50%-off, and 100%-off (FREE). The only requirement was that the book needed to carry a pre-coupon price, and the price after application of the coupon needed to be either free, or $.99 or higher.

So I bet you're wondering, which coupon levels did they choose? The fascinating answer is in the pie chart above and the list below.

Coupon Level ... # of books ... Average book price, pre-coupon
100%-off ... 370 ... $3.25
25%-off ... 983 ... $4.61
50%-off ... 988 ... $5.20

Interesting conclusions from the data (plus additional data):

1. More authors/publishers selected the 50%-off coupon than the 25%
2. Books given the 50% coupon had an average pre-coupon price 13% above the 25% coupon books, yet after applying the discounts, the 50% books cost $2.60 while the 25%-off books cost $3.45. In other words, the more expensive books were selling for 25% less than the less expensive ones. Got that?
   
3. The 50%-off coupon books sold at a rate nearly four times higher than the 25% books. Perhaps the combination of perceived value (of higher price, greater discount) with lower price made all the difference?
4. The 100%-off books experienced 74 times more downloads (sales) on average than the 50%-off books, and 291 times more than the 25%-off books
   

Smashwords Sponsors Read an Ebook Week March 7-13

Smashwords is again an enthusiastic sponsor this year of Read an Ebook Week, an international literary event that kicks off March 7 and runs through March 13. The event is dedicated to celebrating the joys of ebooks.

Book lovers can join in on the celebration by downloading a treasure trove of deep-discounted ebooks from Smashwords as well as the multiple other ebook retailers and personal author websites offering ebook specials.

Like last year, we've created a special RAEW catalog that allows Smashwords authors and publishers to enroll their books in the promotion at discount levels of 25%-off, 50%-off, and free (100%-off!). I expect we'll offer over 1,000 deep-discounted Smashwords ebooks.

Participating authors and publishers will benefit from promotion.

The special Smashwords RAEW catalog, which goes live March 7, will receive promotion at the top of the Smashwords home page, and will also appear in our Stanza catalog on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and in our Aldiko catalog for Android phones. And last but not least, the catalog will receive promotion at the Read an Ebook Week website.

If you're a Smashwords author or publisher, you can enroll your books in the promotion by visiting the enrollment page.

If you're not yet a Smashwords author or publisher (why not??), visit the How to Publish at Smashwords page to learn how simple it is. Once you upload your book(s), you can enroll in the free promotion.

I also encourage those of you with blogs and websites to help promote the event by posting one or more the various promotional banners you find at the RAEW banner page on your own sites.

For more information on Read an Ebook Week, visit www.ebookweek.com, or check out the Smashwords press release.

Enjoy the great reads and tell a friend!

Smashwords 'Read an Ebook Week' Promotion Kicks off this Sunday

This Sunday March 8 marks the kick off for Read an Ebook Week, an international online literary event designed to raise awareness about the benefits of ebook reading. Smashwords is one of several sponsors.

During the week-long event, ebook authors around the world will offer their ebooks at deep discounts, or even free, to generate excitement about ebooks.

Participating Smashwords authors will offer their books for free, or for discounts of 25% or 50%. Smashwords authors can enroll by visiting the Read an Ebook Week enrollment page.

Participating authors will benefit from inclusion in a special catalog appearing on the Smashwords home page during the week. The catalog will also be available in the Smashwords bookstore on Stanza, the #1 most downloaded e-reading app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Smashwords will also publicize the event in a press release, a member mailing, and in other promotions.

Smashwords an Official Sponsor of Read an E-Book Week March 8-14

Smashwords today announced its official sponsorship of Read an E-Book Week, to be held March 8-14. I encourage readers of this blog to get involved at a local level by hosting ebook read-ins and ebook device demonstrations at schools, libraries, bookstores and coffee shops.

At Smashwords, we're going to work with our authors to create special ebook promotions during the week, including free books and discounted books. Stay tuned.

From the press release:

"The mission of Read an E-Book Week is to raise international awareness about the benefits of ebooks to authors, readers, educators and the media," said Rita Toews, founder of the non-profit event. "As a sponsor of the event, Smashwords will help promote the initiative, and will work with its authors to develop special Smashwords book promotions during the week."

Digital reading is on the upswing. According the IDPF, ebook sales in the United States grew 108 percent year over year for the month of November alone. The dramatic sales increase came despite weak overall book industry sales (for in-depth analysis, see our previous post on the rise of ebook sales).

"We're pleased to sponsor and endorse Read an E-Book Week," said Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords. "We hope to introduce thousands of new readers and authors to the joys of ebooks. Thanks to advances in e-reading devices such as the iPhone+Stanza, the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader, electronic reading is often more enjoyable than paper reading. Once book lovers try ebooks, they're hooked."

Click here to read the rest of the press release.

Click here to visit the web site for Read an E-Book Week, and to learn how you can get involved.