An announcement has just been made that from 20th March the Sony eBook stores in the USA and Canada will close, and that their business, and ongoing customers, will be transferred to Kobo. It is part of a wider re-structuring in the company, but I'm still sad to see it happen. Sony was a pioneer in providing an e-reader platform and an ebook store, and helped open the retail industry to independant authors.
Its problem, though, was that it couldn't keep up. I know of only one acquaintance with a dedicated Sony ereader; I know of no one owning a Sony tablet who purchases their ebooks from Sony. My titles are distributed to Sony's Reader Store via Smashwords but sales can be counted on one hand. According to the update from the Smashwords blog, I'm not alone.
This is a warning for writers as well as retail sellers. We need to stay close to the head as the market writhes.
It's an emerging market still, Linda. You're right; we need to keep up with developments. Like you, my book sales through Sony have been minimal.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see if sales via Kobo improves once Sony's customers are transferred. Now *there's* an emerging market for you - the scurry for world wide domination, no less!
DeleteI never found the Sony Reader easy to use. Downloading stuff was traumatic and I eventually gave up and bought a Kindle!
ReplyDeleteAnd there you have it in one, Jen. I started by using the Adobe app for the PC. I thought it was wonderful to read from, but even getting books on that was a hassle. On the other hand, Amazon's app was almost as if I were being attended by a personal butler: "Would you like your ebook to be delivered to another device?" When I took my 10" notebook on holiday I tried it - my entire library downloaded in under a minute. No contest.
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