Do YA E-books Sell?

Do YA eBooks do well? Are they selling? Do you have any success stories/statistics you can share? or do teens prefer to buy paperback books?

From what I’ve seen, yes, they are selling well. No, I don’t have any statistics to share because although I’ve seen some, I can’t find them right now using Google (apparently, I don’t know the right combination of words to search). But personally, I think e-books for all ages is the wave of the future.

Yes, technology is still catching up with us in this area but before too long, I think the experience of reading a book electronically will be very close to that of reading a print book. They even have a spray for those who want to read electronically but who long for the smell of a good book!

This is my opinion:

  1. Lots of adults who have e-readers also read YA books. I do, and I’ve purchase lots of YA e-books, and been sorely disappointed when I haven’t been able to find them.
  2. With the price reductions on Kindle and Nook, and with more “off-brand” e-readers entering the market, it puts e-readers in the same price category as gaming systems. Lots of parents are starting to get these for their kids. (And since Amazon lets you register up to five readers per account, the whole family can share the book files.)
  3. Most major publishers are scrambling to put their YA and even Middle Grade titles into e-formats. iBooks even has picture books for their reader!
  4. Some schools have started going to e-readers instead of printed texts. (I recently saw this on my local news and the students were loving it, but I cannot find a link for you.)

In googling the topic, I found some very interesting articles:

I also follow (and recommend) Marion Jensen’s blog The Open Author which is all about the e-book revolution.

3 thoughts on “Do YA E-books Sell?”

  1. According to the "Business Insider" it is very popular: http://www.businessinsider.com/amanda-hocking-2011-2
    ~ article about a 26 year old, publishing her own YA e-books with Amazon and selling about 100,000 copies a MONTH!! (Looks like they are mostly vampire books & from some of the reviews I read online – not even that great of books). So, it probably is the up and coming thing.

  2. Ebooks will become more popular with teens as soon as the reader prices come down. I have an ipad that my teens have purchased books to read from both Amazon(kindle app) and Barnes and Noble (nook). The problem is sharing the reader. It's mine, and they have to wait until I'm not using it. If teens have a couple hundred dollars, they want to spend it on music (ipods) or cell phones, but the interest is definitely there. When readers are less expensive sales will rocket, because ebooks are so much less expensive than bound books.
    And that's what I think:)

    bchild5(at)aol(dot)com

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