Penguin Ireland Sold 100 ebooks in 2009
Penguin Ireland MD, Michael McLoughlin, has revealed that Penguin Ireland sold only 100 ebooks in 2009.
Speaking at the Irish Branch Conference of the Booksellers Association in the Hilton Hotel, Dublin, Saturday, McLoughlin said that so far in 2010 Penguin Ireland had sold over 1000 ebooks and he expected that sales would increase over time.
McLoughlin also said that Penguin as a whole expect digital sales to reach a minimum of 15% of all sales over the next five years.
In a wide ranging speech McLoughlin said that change would come to Ireland and that Publishers ‘can’t wait another year or two, because everything is changing so fast’. He finished his speech with the thought that this Autumn would see the ‘first digital Christmas, the question is how big is it going to be?’
McLoughlin’s speech came just a few days before the launch of the Apple iPad which many commentators expect to bring even greater change to book publishing. Penguin Ireland recently overtook Gill & Macmillan to become Ireland’s largest trade publisher, although Gill & Macmillan remains larger when educational publishing is counted.
Hmm. Makes me feel quite pleased with my own efforts to sell my novel, Love Knot. In the last three months I have sold more than 100 copies of it on Amazon.com an about another 30 on SmashWords.
Impressive stats there Sheila!
Well done!
[...] to Irish Publishing News, Penguin Ireland — the country’s largest trade publisher — sold just 100 e-books [...]
Yes, reading Penguin’s figures makes me proud of my sole efforts too. Food for thought though…
Interesting…seems that the small publishers are doing better than the big guys on the ebook front at the moment…the field is becoming more level.
For ‘Read an eBook Week March 7-13th 2010′ I shifted one hundred and seventy two ebooks on smashwords.com (unfortunately I made them freely downloadable as a week long promotion).
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