Within the last month we’ve had a couple online content destinations toss their hat into the ebook selling ring. For example, Scribd–which enables you to upload almost any document imaginable and share it with the world–has announced that they’re setting up an ebook store. From PCWorld.com:

“Scribd has been called the YouTube of the ebook world, a title earned by its fast-rising popularity and its social networking approach to digital distribution. Realizing that the Amazon Kindle and ebooks are becoming a permanent fixture in our reading culture, Scribd today opened a beta version of the Scribd Store, which allows users to purchase digital copies of texts from a variety of independent publishers and authors. The best part: authors and publishers keep a hefty 80 percent of revenue.”

This is a natural move for most content sites as they strive for alternative revenue models (as opposed to advertising revenue), especially those that rely on user-generated publications. Of course, one of the main issues with Scribd is that a noticeable amount of their content is published illegally, meaning that the rights-holders haven’t approved the posting of the content (such as the Harry Potter books). But still, with Scribd being one of the top sites on the Internet, this ebook store option could potentially benefit authors. The jury’s still out, but it looks promising–especially if Scribd can easily integrate ecommerce transactions and ebook downloading with one of the ebook devices such as the Kindle, Sony Reader, or iPhone.

Google, the behemoth that it is, is thinking bigger and therefore has more at risk. Their new ebook selling program, slated for release late this year, will bring them in direct competition with Amazon.

From an article in the New York Times:

“Google’s program would allow consumers to read books on any device with Internet access, including mobile phones, rather than being limited to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle. “We don’t believe that having a silo or a proprietary system is the way that e-books will go,” [a representative] said. . . Publishers would be allowed to set list prices but Google would price the e-books for consumers.”

Coming on the heels of Google’s partnership with Sony and their ebook reader, this represents a major new entry into the ebook market. Furthermore, their “device agnostic” approach to ebook distribution could put a dent into the Kindle strategy.

If you’re an ebook author I would suggest that you stay abreast of these new distribution options because their higher traffic (relative to other independent ebook sites) just might improve your sales. By the way, Scribd’s store is up and running now, so you can go ahead and get started.

If you’re not an ebook author. . .well, you should be! There’s no reason *not* to have an ebook version of your book available–especially if your genre is fiction. It’s a perfect direction for today’s self-published author since you don’t have to fork out any money for getting books printed!

Also, as I mentioned on Facebook the other day, Amazon announced that Kindle sales account for 35% of overall revenues for books that have a Kindle version released. You can’t go wrong with that.

Ebooks are finally hitting their stride, which is about time. It took long enough.

Thanks, and till next time–keep publishing!

Henry Hutton
PublishandSell.com