One To Watch – Ridibooks, South Korea

For those here looking at the long-term global ebook markets, this is significant. For the rest of you, go read or watch A Christmas Carol. Then come back and read this with Christmas Future in mind.

Ridibooks have just secured another round of funding for expansion of their ebook business. (LINK) They already control 40% of the Korean ebook market.

Korea is a surprisingly strong player in the global publishing world and, perhaps even more surprisingly, a very strong player in ESL. English as a Second Language. As the year ends Korean firms have been very active in Latin America on the other side of the world, for example, offering ESL literature.

A reminder as ever that we are lucky enough to write in the one global language. English. Don’t let that stroke of good fortune go to waste.

Korea is an exciting, literate, hi-tech market that understands it has a geographically niche language, and places a premium on the English language.

As yet no easy way to get indie EL titles (or indeed translated titles) into Ridibooks or other domestic South Korean ebook stores, and of course neither Amazon nor Apple are there. Fortunately Google Play is, and Kobo has designs on Korea. South Korea, at least. Even I’m not so optimistic as to envisage a North Korea ebook market kicking off any time soon.

No, South Korea is not a market to go expending time and energy on right now, unless you have contacts there or know the language. But it is certainly not one to ignore.

Getting noticed by a Korean publisher could bring its own rewards, but more importantly our guess is Ridibooks has its eyes on the wider world. With both Amazon and Apple effective non-players in the Asian ebook scene (Amazon only in India, China and Japan, Apple only in Japan) the region is wide open for “local” players like Korea’s Ridibooks, Thailand’s Ookbee and Indonesia’s Scoop to gain traction.

Make no mistake. The global ebook market will eclipse the US ebook market many times in the coming years. And Asia will be at the forefront.

No, no point busting a blood vessel trying to get there. But as we saw recently when Brit indies took the number one spot on Kindle China, if you’re not there you could be missing out.

 

 

 

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall, Who’s The Cheapest Of Them All?

Not for the first time this year, a survey has shown that a certain e-commerce giant, famed for offering better value than anywhere else, comes in a poor second or third when it comes to offering the lowest prices.

Bargains-hunter site Shopsavvy (LINK) have just completed a survey of popular consumer goods across seven categories – computers, electronics, entertainment, home and garden, kids, and sports and outdoors – and found Wal-Mart offered lower prices across the board compared to Best Buy and Amazon. (LINK)

This comes as no surprise to us. We’ve been monitoring ebook prices through our daily promo newsletters, and found that, even with Amazon’s Most Favoured Nation clause which dictates indie authors may not list on another retailer at a lower price than on Amazon, the Everything Store often does not have the lowest price ebooks.

In the US Amazon holds its own best, thanks to a common policy among most retailers that $0.99 is the lowest price option available. But even here we often find Txtr US (LINK) has ebooks as low as $0.75 and even $0.60. Likewise the Smashwords partner stores Inktera (LINK) and Versent (LINK). Very few indie authors are in the Books-A-Million store (LINK), but when they are it’s quite usual to see a price point of just $0.79.

In the UK Txtr (LINK) again regularly undercuts Kindle UK’s bottom line price of £0.77. So does Nook UK and Apple. Nook UK often carries titles at 75p, 65p or even 60p.

Apple has a policy we would love to see implemented at Amazon – that all list prices end in a nine. Apart from anything else it keeps the product pages looking professional. When you see an ebook prices at CDN$1.11 or AU$1.13 or 102.73 rupees it screams out that this is an indie title and the author/publisher has taken the lazy option and set the US price on Amazon and then let Amazon set the other prices against the US dollar.

And it’s not just about looking good. It’s about making/losing sales.

When we set that .99 price point on the US we do so for a reason. Because it’s a psychological ceiling to the buyer. $0.99 is under a dollar. $1.03 is over a dollar. $2.99 is clearly cheaper than three dollars. $3.23 is not.

You think it doesn’t matter? Then why not set your US price at US$1.03 or $3.23 instead of the carefully listed 0.99 or 2.99 you carefully chose?

Exactly. It matters.

And it matters all the more in Australia, where lax price listing in KDP can send your ebooks soaring over the psychological ceiling you set for the US, seriously impacting your sales.

Amazon already makes selling in Australia that much harder by setting the lowest price for a 70% royalty at AU$3.99 on Kindle AU when typically the same title will be available on Apple AU, Txtr AU, Kobo AU, Google Play AU, as well as Kobo partner stores like Angus & Robertson and Bookworld, etc, at just AU$2.99.

For those who chose to let Amazon set the price against the US dollar that AU$3.99 ebook, already obliged to be a dollar more than on Kindle US or Kindle Canada (and no, currency exchange rates do not justify this difference), shoots up to around the AU$4.40 mark on the Kindle AU site. An AU$4.99 title will appear at about AU$5.50 if you take the lazy pricing route.

Another factor impacting pricing on the Kindle UK and EU stores has been VAT. When you set your list price in KDP, Amazon adds the VAT to the list price showing. So even if you carefully chose 99p (£0.99) as your UK price point in your dashboard the price showing on the UK product page would be £1.02 or £1.03.

This matter resolves itself in a few weeks when Amazon adopts a new policy of setting UK and EU prices on the product page at the price we chose in the dashboard. But be warned even then if you are letting Amazon set your UK/EU price by the US dollar rate the price showing will still likely be an untidy one.

The new change kicks in from 01 January 2015 and is going to cause a lot of confusion for indie authors selling in the UK and EU with regard to the royalty they will receive. We’ll take a closer look at this development later this month.

Meantime, pop along to your Kindle listings store by store, country by country, and see if you have a tidy list price below the psychological buy ceiling, or a messy one above that ceiling that could be deterring readers.

You can do so via the KDP dashboard, or simply go the store direct. Open the Amazon store where you are (you may need to try a different browser to avoid Amazon re-directing you to your local store again), find one of your titles, and check the URL address.

Where it says (for US) Amazon (dot) com (slash) your title, simply change the (dot) com coding for each country.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) co (dot) uk for the British store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) ca for the Canada store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) com (dot) au for the Australia store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) in for the India store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) com (dot) br for the Brazil store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) co (dot) mx for the Mexico store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) co (dot) jp for the Japan store.

Change Amazon (dot) com to (dot) de for the Germany store.

For other EU countries – Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands the codes are respectively ES, IT, FR and NL.

Ebook Bargains UK

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.

300+ Global Ebook Outlets? It’s As Easy As One-Two-FREE!

We all know the ebook market is going global. But for most indie authors it seems we’re still partying like it’s 2009. Many of us are still exclusive with one store, or in so few other outlets that we may as well be.

Meanwhile that international ebook market just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

So just how many global ebook stores can we indie authors get our ebooks into without taking out a second mortgage and busting a blood vessel?

How does over 300 sound?

 ~

 Amazon has eleven Kindle sites, but readers in Ireland, Belgium, Monaco, St. Marino, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand can buy from neighbouring Kindle stores without surcharges, as can South Africans. So effectively nineteen outlets covered there.

NB In theory many other countries (by no means all – over half the world is blocked totally) can buy from AmCom, but sending readers to Amazon US only to be surcharged will reflect badly on the author, as readers won’t know that the $2+ surcharge (even on “free” ebooks!) goes to Amazon, not to you. For that reason we’re counting just the above-mentioned countries for Amazon.

f you are with Apple you can add another 51 countries to the list. Apple is the second largest ebook distributor by dedicated-country reach. Extensive coverage of North America, Latin America and Europe. Not so hot in Asia or Africa.

Nook is kind of in limbo right now. Apart from the US Barnes & Noble store and Nook UK (a reminder: it’s NOT called B&N in the UK) there are another thirty or so countries served by Nook with a Windows 8 app.

At some stage they will all become fully fledged stores, maybe, but for now, let’s discount those and just add the two key Nook stores to the list.

19 Amazon stores, 51 Apple stores and 2 Nook stores means you already have easy access to 72 global ebook stores.

If you are with Kobo then in theory you’ll be in the localized Kobo stores in US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Africa, India, UK, Netherlands, Germany, France… You’ll be in Kobo partner stores like Bookworld, Collins, Angus & Robertson and Pages & Pages in Australia, in PaperPlus in New Zealand, in National Book Store in the Philippines, in Crossword in India, in Indigo in Canada, in Fnac in France and Portugal, in Mondadori in Italy, in Livraria Cultura in Brazil, and probably a few more that aren’t springing to mind right now.

Okay, so twenty-two more retail outlets right there, taking you up to 92.

Then there’s the Indiebound stores. Indiebound is a Kobo partner project whereby bricks and mortar indie stores have a Kobo ebook store integrated with their website. As an example, checkout Poor Richard’s in Kentucky. Or The Velveteen Rabbit Bookshop & Guest House in Wisconsin. Or Octavia Books in New Orleans.

We haven’t done a full appraisal of all of the Indiebound stores yet (soon!), but there are well over FOUR HUNDRED b&m indie bookstores selling ebooks via Kobo. Some just send you to the main Kobo store. Others have a fully integrated ebook store as part of their website.

We discount the first lot here and just include those with an integrated Kobo store. Let’s play safe and say there are, very conservatively, just 50 integrated Indiebound stores with your ebooks in (more likely well over 200!).

Suddenly we’re looking at 142 retailers with your ebooks in.

If you are in ‘txtr that’s another twenty stores right now, and with six more in Latin America about to open.

162 global retail stores.

If you are with Smashwords then as well as ‘txtr you ought to also be in Blio and Versent, and in the Indian megastore Flipkart.

Bookbaby will also get you into Blio and Flipkart, and if you are with Bookbaby you can be in eSentral. E-Sentral is based in Malaysia but also has stores in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Brunei.

Bookbaby will also get you into Ciando, one of the key retail outlets in Germany. And as per this link – http://www2.ciando.com/ – the Ciando ebook store in Germany is in English!

For those who haven’t been keeping count that’s 173 global ebook retailers.

Throw in All-Romance and OmniLit, which is free-access, to make that 175.

American and British indies often don’t look beyond Smashwords and D2D, and maybe Bookbaby, totally ignoring the free-access aggregators in Europe like Xin-Xii and Narcissus. We do so at our peril.

Xin-Xii will get you into the seven key Tolino Alliance stores (Hugendubel, Weltbild, Thalia, etc) that devastated Amazon market share last year. Essential places to be if you want to make it in Germany.

But Xin-Xii will also get you into Donauland in Austria, Casa del Libro in Spain, Family Christian in the US, Otto in Germany, and Libris in the Netherlands. It will also get you in the ebook stores of the mobile phone operators O2 and Vodafone.

Lost count yet? We’re talking 189 global ebook stores already.

So let’s see if Narcissus can push us over that 200 mark. Narcissus is based in Italy, and little known outside, but it a gem of an aggregator.

Quite apart from many of the stores already covered above, Narcissus will also get you in Ultima, in LaFeltrinelli, in IBS, in Net-Ebook, in Libreria Rizzoli, in Cubolibri, in Book Republic, in Ebookizzati, in DEAStore, in Webster, in MrEbook, in Ebook.it, inLibrisalsus, in Libreria Fantasy, in The First Club, in Omnia Buk, in Il Giardino Dei Libri, in CentoAutori, in Excalibooks, in Hoepli, in San Paolo Store, in Libramente, in Ebook Gratis, in Libreria Ebook, in Byblon Store, in Libreria Pour Femme, as well as numerous specialist and academic stores. Narcissus also distribute to Nokia. Yes, as in the phone company. Ebooks are still widely read on Feature phones, and Nokia leads the way.

But just those 26 examples from Narcissus take us to 215 global ebook stores.

And then there’s Google Play. You can go direct to Google Play or free (pay as you sell) through Narcissus.

Google Play have 57 global ebook stores (and more on the way).

Which takes us up to 272 ebook stores. And counting.

On top of this we can add the ebook subscription services like Oyster (US only) and Scribd (global), accessible through Bookbaby, Smashwords and (in the case of Scribd) D2D.

Then there’s digital libraries. Even leaving aside the as yet unresolved mess that is the Smashwords-OverDrive saga, indies with Smashwords or Bookbaby may be in libraries through Baker & Taylor.

Bookbaby also distribute to the wholesale catalogues Copia and Gardners, which supply libraries and also a ton more retail stores over and above those listed above.

Throw in the Copia and Gardners outlets and we EASILY cross the 300 retailer mark.

Remember, ALL these are accessible free of charge (you pay a percentage per sale).

There are other options, like Vook. IngramSpark and Ebook Partnership, which would substantially add to this list, but these options either have up-front costs or offer a very poor percentage return for free-access.

But worth noting that players like Ebook Partnership can get you not just into the OverDrive catalogue, which means an appearance in key stores like Books-A-Million, Waterstone’s, Infibeam, Kalahari and Exclus1ves, as well as the myriad OverDrive library partners, but also other key up and coming outlets like Magzter, like Bookmate in Russia, and so on and so on.

 ~

 The global ebook market is growing by the day. There are huge new markets opening up in Latin America, in India, in China, and across SE Asia right now that most indies are not a part of.

In the near future Africa will take a big leap forward as retailers make ebooks accessible to the hundreds of millions of Africans currently locked out of our cozy ebook world.

Make no mistake. The global ebook market will dwarf the US ebook market many, many, many times over as it gains momentum.

No, there won’t be many overnight successes, yes it will take time, and yes it will require a good few hours of effort to make sure you are in all these stores in the first place.

Sorry. There are no magic wands to wave. No just-add-water instant solutions.

No pain, no gain.

But you only have to upload to these stores once, and a handful of aggregators can do most of them for you in a couple of rounds, planting the seeds for future harvests. Then you just need to pop back now and again to tend the garden. It’s a one-off effort now that will pay back over a life-time as these global markets take off.

That list of 300+ stores above is just going to grow and grow and GROW as market fragmentation and international expansion gather momentum. The global ebook market has barely left the starting line!

The savvy indie author thinks about the next five years, not the next five days. Don’t get lost in the minutiae of your every-day ebook life and miss the bigger picture here.

Because we are all privileged to be part of something that is way, way bigger than just selling our books. We are witnessing – participating in – the early stages of a New Renaissance quite unparalleled in human history.

A New Renaissance on a global scale that will not just make accessible existing art forms to every single person on the planet, but will create new art forms as yet unknown, but in which we can be sure writers will play a key role.

Be part of it.

Google Play, Glocalization and the Global Ebook Market – and why Google Play will be the first major western retailer to open ebook stores in the Middle East and Nigeria .

 

In trying to stay ahead of the game and plan for the future it’s useful to step outside our industry boxes now and again and look at the bigger box our own box is in.

Ebooks require software and hardware, obviously, and while (as Japan shows) being an advanced digital nation doesn’t in itself guarantee ebooks will take off in a big way, it’s certainly an indicator. Which is why identifying the countries trending digitally helps savvy retailers identify where to develop ebook stores. And in turn helps the savvy author think about the future of the global ebook market.

Google have this down to a fine art. While Amazon’s international expansion has self-evidently ground to a halt (sorry Joe Konrath, but your prediction that Amazon would become the dominant global ebook player in 2014 was never a runner) Google Play recently added another dozen global ebook stores to their already impressive list.

But before taking a closer look at Google Play and glocalization let’s talk boxes.

In our ebook box it’s easy to shut out the rest of the industry and pretend it doesn’t matter. Even though we all know ebooks make up only a fraction of publishing industry revenue and overall book sales we conveniently ignore this fact to keep up the facade that trad publishing is doomed and indie authors can earn far more on their own.

For those who treat Hugh Howey’s Author Earnings Report as gospel, check out the comments on Chuck Wendig’s blog where Howey admits that, actually, he makes more from trad publishing than he does from Amazon.

It’s even easier to shut out the bigger box that is digital development, and to ignore one of its key drivers – games. But keeping a close eye on the gaming industry is a good predictor of the shape of things to come for ebooks, because the technology – and increasingly the retailers – go hand in hand.

VentureBeat recently ran a post on the global gaming industry – and the top 100 countries are worth closer examination. You can check out the full top 100 list here/.

There’s no breakdown of how these numbers equate to dedicated consoles as opposed to mobile devices, but safe to assume for most “Third World” countries inordinately expensive console systems are mostly not an option and it is m-devices (smartphones, tablets and phablets) that are where the action is. And the shift from console to mobile will be increasingly pronounced in the “First World” too.

The key point here is, many people embracing gaming technology around the world will be doing so on ebook-friendly devices. Not to mention many console systems can also double as ereaders and some even have their own ebook stores – more on this in another post.

Perusing the top 100 gaming nations is instructive for two reasons.

First, Google Android devices and the Google Play store tower over the non-console gaming world. It’s no coincidence that most of the 57 Google Play ebook stores all feature high on the gaming top 100 list.

Point two follows on from this. The other 43 countries on that list are safe bets for Google Play Books stores to magically appear in in the not too distant future. Google Play have already demonstrated clearly that the size of the country and its wealth is neither here nor there. Among their latest roll-out with ebook stores are such small and impoverished nations as Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

The number of ebooks they sell there will be miniscule, but Google are playing the long game. And because they are first and foremost a digital company, not an e-commerce company like Amazon, it means they value these small markets.

By contrast Amazon’s international ebook stores are simply adjuncts to its existing and planned print-book distribution network. Which is why while Google Play can give Belgium, Austria and Switzerland their own ebook stores Amazon demands ebook buyers swallow their pride and go to a neighbouring country, which in the case of Switzerland isn’t even in the same currency. Even where Amazon goes digital-first, as in Brazil, it’s simply as a spearhead operation to bring the bigger Amazon e-commerce store into play.

For this reason Amazon is never going to be a major global ebook player, and will continue to surcharge readers in the few countries outside the Kindle Zone it allows to buy from the US store. It has no interest in the wider international ebook market beyond its broader e-commerce ambitions.

But back to that games chart.

At 31 and 33 in the global gaming chart are Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Egypt is at 37, Iran at 47, the United Arab Emirates at 52, and Kenya at 68.

Currently the only country in Africa with a dedicated major western retailer ebook store is South Africa (Google Play, ‘txtr, and a localized Kobo store – plus some domestic stores supplied by OverDrive). The Middle East (and most of Africa) is off-limits not just for stores but even for downloads.

A reminder here: Despite all the Middle East countries and all the African countries being listed in the KDP drop-down menu, leading indies to believe they can sell ebooks in these countries, Amazon actually block downloads to most of them and imposes a $2 or more surcharge on the ones it does allow to buy from the US site.

Nigeria, an English-speaking nation with a massive population (180 million), is obviously key contender for the second African ebook store for Google Play, and Egypt and Israel the likely first candidates for the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE will no doubt have additional political hurdles to clear regarding content, but hopefully won’t be far behind. And for the rest of Africa, while it’s mainly the Arabic-speaking North African countries that are on the top 100 gaming nations list (Morocco and Algeria notably) it’s a safe bet Google Play is looking at the bigger picture in Africa.

Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi and Senegal are all contenders, along with Kenya, to be not far behind Nigeria in Google Play’s sub-Saharan ambitions.

And looking further ahead, Google Play will have ebook stores in every country in the world in the foreseeable future. Google is investing heavily in satellite internet, which will mean the Google Play store will be accessible literally anywhere on the planet to those who have a receiving device and to those who can make payments.

Google is currently rolling out its Android One project designed to get even more inexpensive Android devices into the developing nations’ markets, with India first on the list. It’s an exciting project that will eventually go hand in hand with the satellite project to bring internet access to every part of the globe.

Obviously Google is a business, not a charity, and these altruistic ventures have a key business angle – every Android device is a potential repository for the Google Play store, and for us indies that will eventually include a Google Play Books store.

But having a Google Play store on your device is no use if you don’t have the means to buy from it. Which is where Google Play again has the edge over its global rivals.

One of the reasons Google Play is proving to be the only western retailer capable of embracing the global ebook market is glocalization.

Glocalization – What It Means and Why Most Western Ebook Retail Giants Will Be Left Behind.

Japanese spending on mobile apps was just 36% of US spending in 2012. In 2013 it was bigger than the US. And one company led the way – Google Play. Not just leading the way, but surging ahead. Google Play not only equaled Apple iOS revenue, but is expected to leave Apple standing in 2014.

In previous posts we’ve mentioned how m-commerce – spending on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and phablets) had rocketed, why m-commerce is the future, and why global ebook sales are going to expand exponentially. Apps are how it all happens.

The reason there has been such a surge in Japan, and the reason Google Play is raking in the cash and leaving others – even the mighty Apple – behind, is because Google Play understand glocalization.

Glocalization is a combination of two words – global and localization. Put simply, being in foreign countries but doing local business.

When Google Play hit Japan it didn’t just turn up with the Google Play US site with some Japanese window dressing. It glocalized. It didn’t just set up a store and let people pay with local currency with credit/debit cards. Crucially it added the preferred payment system in that country. Carrier billing.

Now carrier billing may be meaningless to you and I, but if you live in Japan its second nature.

Android owners on NTT Docomo, KDDI, and Softbank can pay for their apps, or Google ebooks, or Google music, etc, in a single payment, along with their airtime, data, and messaging fees, right to their carrier.

When a savvy Japanese reader is choosing their next ebook they don’t want the hassle of setting up accounts with Amazon or filling in their credit card details to Kobo, etc, etc. Google Play is integrated with their carrier (ISP / mobile phone supplier with probably a ton more services included) and they just buy from Google Play and the item appears on their monthly statement.

Yes, Amazon’s one-click is pretty cool too, and that’s the same thing, right? Or as good as.

Well, if you’re in the US or UK it’s pretty cool, granted. But supposing you live in, say, India? True, Amazon has a Kindle site there now, but Amazon’s famed one-click isn’t available, and when you want to pay you actually pay in the USA.

Amazon famously only allows internationally-enabled card to be used for payment, and only allows local currency on some products, forcing buyers to pay in USD for the rest, with all the additional costs that incurs with exchange rates, bank fees, etc.

In the small-print on Kindle India Amazon helpfully advises: “If you’re unsure whether your credit or debit card is internationally-enabled, please contact your bank to confirm.”

Be honest. If a foreign company set up shop in your country and gave you all those hoops to jump through just to buy an ebook, when there are perfectly good local alternatives, how long would you stay there?

No wonder Indian readers are sticking with Flipkart, Landmark and Infibeam, or going to the next-generation stores like Rockstand and Newshunt, all of whom understand people living in India want to pay in Indian currency using Indian payment options.

And no wonder Google Play is soaring ahead in Japan and around the world.

The biggest hurdle for Amazon’s international aspirations is payments. Amazon, as per the Kindle India example above, expects you to pay with a card because that’s how it is in America. The complete opposite of glocalization.

Amazon its expanding its own payments system, but as with everything Amazon it’s a walled garden. This seemed (and was) a great idea from Amazon’s perspective in the countries it got a head start in. Readers who bought into the Kindleverse in the early days will find it hard to ship their ebooks to other devices should they decide to move on.

But what Amazon is finding to its cost is that it doesn’t just keep existing customers locked in. It locks prospective customers out.

If the rumoured Kindle Sweden and Kindle Russia stores ever do materialize the readers who are already buying ebooks from existing retailers will face the same issues should they want to go the Kindle route. With the additional problem of payments thrown in.

In Russia only 35% of metropolitan18-35 year olds use bankcards at all – and far rural areas the number is far fewer.

It’s a similar story in most of the developing world. People pay by cash (even for digital goods, by paying over the counter at their local equivalent of a 7/11) or use e-wallet solutions or carrier billing, because – again as per the Kindle India example above – even if they have local bank cards it’s unlikely any international retailer will recognize them. And if they are recognized the buyer will get stung for currency exchange fees.

On top of all this comes brand reputation. Amazon has a reputation (deserved or not, it exists) as the Big Bad American Wolf that enters a country with the sole purpose of decimating local competition to build its own business up.

Google? Google is also in the business of making money, but its approach is just the opposite.

Google’s Android system has just reached the one billion user benchmark. Android has almost doubled its user-base in just twelve months.

When it comes to the global markets Google is a universally recognized brand beyond compare. Which means the Google Play store will be the first port for huge numbers of users.

Google Play “only” has 57 global ebook stores so far, but the direction is clear, and the gaming numbers indicative. While Amazon is on hold at a dozen or so Kindle stores Google Play is on target to have over 100 ebook stores in the next year or so, and be in every country in the world in the not too distant future.

Most importantly for us indies, for most of the current 57 countries Google Play Books is in, and for pretty much all future ebook stores they open, Google Play will be the only big western retailer available to readers. What competition there is globally will come from the next-generation players emerging from the Asia-Pacific region. Or what we Brits call the Far East.

Google Play may never be a match for the Kindle and Apple iBooks stores in the US and UK – but for the rest of the world Google Play is our best hope for a global readership.

 

Ebook Bargains UK.

Far more than just an ebook promo newsletter.

Far more than just the UK.