Sci-Fi and Romance Gain market Share with ebooks

How did I miss this in September?

" e-book market share of the science fiction and fantasy sector globally for the 10 weeks since June was 10%, more than treble the genre’s market share of print book sales. The share taken by romance and saga books was 14%, seven times its print market share."


Finally some numbers on the jump to ebooks by Romance and Sci-fi readers.

Note those September numbers. Only 2% of print is Romance!?!
Only 3% of print Sci-fi? This definitely implies the readers of certain genres are embracing ebooks faster than others. (Otherwise book and digital market shares would be the same.)


I found this link googling "Romance ebook market share"

So about a quarter of ebooks are the two genres I've commented on...

I think after the spectacular sales of e-readers this holiday season we can expect increased sales of all ebooks.


Congrats to Amanda Hocking . One astute commenter over on Konrath's blog noted the numbers were up to 12/30/2010. Over 99,000 sales! (Including 12/31, probably over 100k.)

Amazon related: 993 (is this print?)
Kindle UK: 378
B&N (to 12/30/2010): 23,694
Smashwords: 7,895
Kindle (US): 66,040

Amazon (print?, UK, US) at 68% market share.

I see ereaders increasing reading. Just as when Borders and B&N storming into the market increased reading.

Got Popcorn?
Neil

ps 1/2/2011

Wait a second...
Sci-fi is 10% market share, but 13 of the top 20 are Indie... Best selling are Big6 so lets discount Indie market share by 50% or 10%*13/20*50%=3.25% of the *total* book market is just due to Indie sci-fi authors.

For Romance, 19 of the top 20 were Indie! Top selling season of the year and only Nora Roberts was holding 'old school ground.' I see ZERO reason to discount in Romance, but I'll grant the big6 another slot as I might have picked a fluke day:
14%*90%=12.6% market share.

Just looking at two genres, Indie authors have 15.8% of ebook market share!

What about other genres?
Mysteries and thrillers was Stieg Larson, John Grisham, James Paterson, Dean Koontz, etc. with 5 low ranked (of the top 20) Indie authors. So low Indie market share here...

History had few well selling Indie authors...

Gay and Lesbian seems to be 100% Indie (what is the market share, out of curiosity?)

Final conclusion: Indie authors are somewhere between 20% and 33% of ebooks! Most likely on the low end of that estimate, but without numbers it is difficult to bracket further.

Now wonder Macmillan and other big 6 publishers tried to slow ebooks early this year. Their overpricing backfired! Thankfully!

PSS on 1/2/2011
Thoughts for the day:
1. Is Ebook Indie/Small pub Sci-Fi, in terms of books SOLD (excluding free ebooks/used pbooks) outselling the AAP 14 publishers in Sci-Fi? By outselling the AAP 14 publishers, I'm including pbook retail as well as ebooks! They are of the same order of magnitude, but the numbers are too 'fuzzy' to say more than that.

2. It is obvious that Indie+small publisher Romance ebooks outsell, in units and *dollars*, the 14 AAP publishers that report ebook sales. By this I mean pbooks as well as ebooks volumes and bucks! 1st link of this posts notes the 'cannibalism' of print sales.

I cannot believe I missed that informative link... (I Google daily to find out more on ebooks.)