The Association of American Publishers (AAP) conducted a survey of more than 1,200 U.S. publishers, to determine the health of eBook sales.
Good E-Reader posted an article reporting that, according to the AAP, adult fiction sales increased a mere 3.8 percent from 2012 to 2013, reaching an annual total of $1.3 billion. The same survey reported a 26.7-percent drop in sales of children’s eBooks.
The purpose behind the AAP survey was to discount the growth of eBook sales. But while they counted indie authors who happen to be members of the AAP, they did not count any sales of indie authors who were not members.
Why the Numbers Do Lie
We suspect that most indie authors are not members of the AAP, and that if the figures from their sales were included, they would tell a much different story about the success of eBooks in adult fiction, children’s literature and many other categories.
If you’re an indie author, you don’t need to be a member of the AAP; you simply need to realize that their numbers don’t tell the whole story. In fact, Mark Coker, founder and CEO of
SmashWords, predicts that indie authors like you will own a full 50 percent of the digital publishing market by 2020.
Keep writing, indie authors. You are the future of books.
