This morning, book designer, Mark Gelotte, sent me a link to a recent Wall Street Journal article reporting that the trend toward ebooks is leveling out and that non-fiction book readers tend to favor print. According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 90% of e-book readers continue to read physical volumes.
What does this mean for you as a nonfiction author? If you’re planning to self publish, you may want to offer both print and ebook versions. On a panel at the Harvard Medical School CME publishing course last week, Literary Agent and author of You Should Really Write a Book, Regina Brooks shared that quite a
few readers asked her to sign a print copy but told her they were reading it by ebook. Another reader mentioned that he tended to flip back and forth between print and ebooks and often bought both.
So, e-book/print is not an either/or decision. Publishers know this and do both. You should, too, and you may just get two sales in one.
What do you read and buy? What are your publishing plans? Any questions for us? Weigh in!
