E-Book Romance Sales Rise...

Digital sales of romance books are rising and publishers are realising that romance pays.

Mills and Boon adopted digital early in 2008 and now their paperbacks are also sold as e-books at the same time. Previously when a book was published it was only available in print form for a limited time. If you missed a book by a favourite author then you'd probably have to find it second-hand, or hope it was in a clearance deal sometime in the future.

Now they're available with a few clicks of your mouse and credit card details.

E-books are especially useful if you're researching a particular publisher for future submission; you can read their current publications without creating a pile of books on your table.

Random House's Ebury imprint have recently launched their Rouge Romance list, so when mainstream publishers start embracing e-book romance then it tells you it's a growth market.

One of the reasons given for more romances sold in e-book form is anonymity. You get your e-reader out on the bus or train and no one around you knows what you are reading, it could be Erotica or Dan Brown and there's no tell-tale cover to be seen by the person opposite you.

Now I have to say when I've seen someone on the bus reading a book I do look to see what they're reading, but usually it's not the cover I look at, but the top of the page for a book title...Sadly living on a bus route that passes a university most of the books I see aren't that exciting...

More e-readers are being produced, especially in the US where e-books began selling a few years before the UK, and there are a number of publishers enjoying the boom in e-book sales.

For a writer digital has provided more market opportunities, and not just with their own Kindle books.

Read some figures here.

So, do you think e-reader anonymity helps?

A Friendly Blogger Shares A Thought...

First I have to say thank you to Rosemary Gemmell for nominating me for The Friendly Blogger Award.

Since I have been blogging I have made a lot of new friends, so thank you all.

As so many of the blogs I too would have mentioned have already
been suggested by other nominees I thought I would do something
slightly different- so I hope you don't mind...

When Steve Jobs of Apple and IPhone fame sadly died last week,
there was a clip on the BBC News of a speech he gave to graduating
students at Stanford University in 2005 accompanying the news report.

If you want to read the whole speech (and it is worth reading) the Guardian published it at the weekend, so look here.

Some of his words really stuck in my mind, and for a writer they are a good reminder. (Quoted from the Guardian item.)

" " And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become." "