[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #272: Finding the next (e)book

[Editor]

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 
<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/>
OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #272: Finding the next (e)book
March 7th, 2012

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/magnifying-glass.png>We 
know ebooks are very popular 
<http://www.independent-authors.org/news/76666/Ebooks-Digital-Book-Census-Results.htm> 
right now, and it's also proving to be pretty easy for authors to 
self-publish 
<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/booktype_lets_you_self-publish_books_for_kindle_or.php> 
in ebook format (and even sometimes encouraged 
<http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/08/amazon-establishes-6-million-fund-to-boost-kindle-direct-publishing/>). 
The logical conclusion is that the vast selection of ebooks available to 
readers is only going to get bigger as time goes on. With such a huge 
body of work to choose from, how will readers find the ebooks they want 
to read? Probably in the same ways they currently find any book, with 
only slight variations.

    * Discoverability in the digital age
      <http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/discoverability-in-the-digital-age-personal-recommendations-and-bookstores-survey-says/>
      (Digital Book World/Matt Mullin) "According to a recent survey,
      presented at the Digital Book World conference in New York last
      week [January 19], nearly half of readers discover new books
      through the recommendations of family and friends, and nearly a
      third discover them at bookstores."
    * How do books get discovered?
      <http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/343-how-do-books-get-discovered-a-guide-for-publishers-and-authors-who-want>
      (Goodreads Blog/Patrick Brown) "One of the biggest things we
      learned-or should we say confirmed-is the power of word of mouth.
      Searching for titles on Goodreads is the top way people find books
      for their to-read shelves. That means they first heard of it
      elsewhere-likely from friends or the media."
    * How do people discover new books and authors?
      <http://chocolateandvodka.com/2012/02/24/how-do-people-discover-new-books-and-authors/>
      (Chocolate and Vodka/Suw Charman-Anderson) "Both my graph and the
      Verso Digital figures show that self-published authors should
      focus on encouraging people to make personal recommendations for
      their work, as that is still the most important way that people
      find new authors and books. Simply telling your friends that you
      recently read a book and loved it appears to be the single most
      important thing you can do to help an author along."
    * How ebook buyers discover books
      <http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/09/how-ebook-buyers-discover-books.html>
      (Smashwords/Mark Coker) "I was surprised only 3% of respondents
      looked first to the bestseller lists, which scored just as poorly
      as print media reviews. Possibly it's a flaw in how I structured
      the survey. I was also surprised that retailer recommendations,
      such as the 'people who bought this bought that,' scored only 5%."

*/Ebook sales (non-)fact:/*

Although there are reports that ebook sales figures showed slower growth 
in 2011 than in previous years, it's difficult to know for sure because 
Amazon US did not report 2011 ebook sales (although Amazon UK reported 
<http://www.thebookseller.com/news/amazon-ups-uk-e-book-sales-five-fold.html> 
a large increase).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The */OPLIN 4cast/* is a weekly compilation of recent headlines, topics, 
and trends that could impact public libraries. You can subscribe to it 
in a variety of ways, such as:

    * *RSS feed.* You can receive the OPLIN 4cast via RSS feed by
      subscribing to the following URL:
      http://www.oplin.org/4cast/index.php/?feed=rss2.
    * *Live Bookmark.* If you're using the Firefox web browser, you can
      go to the 4cast website (http://www.oplin.org/4cast/) and click on
      the orange "radio wave" icon on the right side of the address bar.
      In Internet Explorer 7, click on the same icon to view or
      subscribe to the 4cast RSS feed.
    * *E-mail.* You can have the OPLIN 4cast delivered via e-mail (a'la
      OPLINlist and OPLINtech) by subscribing to the 4cast mailing list
      at http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/OPLIN4cast.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120307/2dcb18cb/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: kubrickheader.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 38379 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120307/2dcb18cb/kubrickheader-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: magnifying-glass.png
Type: image/png
Size: 11744 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20120307/2dcb18cb/magnifying-glass-0001.png