[neilmarr]

The UK's royal wedding on April 29 is a ploy by the House of Windsor to draw attention from the international ebook release on that date of 'Slip-Up' by Anthony Delano -- a blow-by-blow account of the biggest blunder ever by Her Majesty's Police.

Should we re-schedule release for the previous Firday now that news of the 'Marriage of the Century' has been so quietly leaked to press and public?

Just so our enthusiastic and diligent mods don't misunderstant my clumsy headline lure and shift this to 'Shameless Self-Promotion', the point I've tried to illustrate here (I could have dreamed up others) is twofold ...

*Does the timing of an ebook title's initial 'release' promo hold any significance?

*Can an ebook's success be negatively influenced by a current event or can a current event be turned to its promotional advantage (as I've hinted at through my off-the-top headline on this thread)?

Also a bit of encouraging local news that might be of general interest to ebook-reading types and ebook authors:

My own wee house got into the major ebook stores only in November 2010 after its official US registration as a publisher kicked in and we could deal direct with retail.

Our US-based book-keeper and my partner, MR member Tony Szmuk in Canada, have just completed the six-monthly royalties run: The first that factors in ebook sales through new third-party retail.

Paperback is holding its own, but ebooks, which for a decade until this year never accounted for more than 5% of our sales, now account for over 90%.

Bear in mind, of course, that even our paperbacks are mainly sold online, and online print-v-ebook sales statistics are very different from those numbers bandied around by the big houses that still have a firm grip on the (massive but dying) brick-and-mortar trade. Amazon -- the biggest book-seller in history -- let's remember saw ebook sales outstrip combined paperback and hardback sales last year ... even on blockbuster new releases by brand-name authors backed by massive publishing houses.

We have you folks (and Harry T especially) to thank for our apparent recent successes. When I signed up with MobileRead exactly two years ago this month, the messaqge was soon hammered home and acted upon: "A PDF IS NOT AN EBOOK!" We listened, Harry and others, and spent over a year carefully creating ePub, Mobi and new PDFs from Word source material on a title-by-title basis. No automation of conversion.

I guess these amazing figures (amazing to us, at least) mean that all our pals at MobileRead had it right and saw the present and the future coming. You lads and lassies opened our eyes in the nick of time. For that, we'll be forever grateful to MR and its generous, astute members. Also most grateful for anti-DRM, anti-geographical restriction, anti-Agency Five advice, etc, etc, etc, that's shaped the ebook side of our house policy.

Cheers. Neil