In the last few months, several e-book-only imprints have closed up shop.
First, AtRandom (Random House), then iPublish (AOL Time Warner) and last week MightyWords (BN.com-majority shareholder) bit the dust.
But that doesn't mean e-books are a lost cause. In fact, e-book reading and sales are stronger than ever.
In the past year, 1,600 titles were downloaded more than 3.1 million times at the Etext Library at the University of Virginia. That's 8,715 free e-books per day.
Meanwhile, independent publishers and retailers such as Fictionwise.com, Booklocker.com, Hardshell Word Factory and Palm Digital Corp reported sales increases in 2001 from between 100 and 400 percent over 2000.
What hasn't worked is heavily invested companies -- such as iPublish and MightyWords -- setting overly optimistic expectations.
But what has worked, albeit on a smaller scale, is selling quality work from recognized authors (Palm or Fictionwise), or offering readers niche titles that they are interested in reading (Hard Shell and Booklocker). [read more]
