E-book business for iPhone/iPad overview

In light of increasing competition on the market for e-books (release of iPad, announcements from competitors of iPad, competition with Kindle) and a launch by our company of its own product VIBook Engine for iPhone/iPad/Android/BlackBerry, we prepared for our readers and clients an overview of market for e-books for iPad/iPhone.

We hope that our work will be useful for you!

Overview

Books and applications, total: ~ 35,000 (May 2010)

New apps: ~ 40 new books daily (on average).

Average prices in Top-100 under the category “Books”:

Within all Top-100: $2.61

#1-#10 app: $1.89

#1 – #50 app: $2.69

#51 – #100 app: $2.69

Distribution of prices in Top-100 under the category “Books”:

Minimum price – $0.99

Maximum price – $14.99

Portfolio characteristics of the most successful publishers from Top-100 “Books”:

Content uniqueness:

By content:

Portfolio of the average successful publisher from Top-100(“Books”) has approximately 60 applications.

Moreover, there’s one publisher holding 25% of all content of the section “Books”.

Effective models for selling the books:

1. Application with free books + selling of books together with application via in-app purchase;

2. Portfolio of books with SEO of high quality both in iTunes and through search engines (Google etc);

Price of platform(book engine):

1. For option of selling model № 2 – High-quality engine and design of one book costs $700-1100;

2. For option of selling model № 1 – Platform “free books + selling of books within the in-app purchase” costs $4000-7000 + $400-500 for each;

3. For both selling models one should consider also the budget for advertisement and SEO, since promotion within iTunes is not enough anymore for reaching the TOP-100.

Conclusion:

- business segment on selling the books for iPhone/iPad is very interesting for companies and persons who hold copyrights on most of content (in Top-100 publishers have on average 60 and more books and applications in their portfolios);

- one should consider the segment of interactive books which started promptly developing last month, especially in light of iPad release (even though the cost for producing such books is much higher as compared with normal books);

- the segment of medical books has some perspectives (most probably it is also related to iPad release, which allows to operate easier with the graphics etc);

- the most promising, stable quick-growing segments – books for children and comics;

- to promote within Top-100 apart from book of a high-quality itself one needs a considerable amount of advertisement of the book outside the Top-100, including promotion in Google etc (SEO);

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Author:
Vitaliy Goncharuk,
Managing Partner, The VIactivity LLC
(iPhone/Android software development, production, marketing&PR)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/vactivity

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The VIBook Engine for iPhone/iPad/Android/BlackBerry – link.