Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I've been a shareware author for more years than I care to remember, and in the shareware business, a 1% registration ratio (ie 1 sale for every 100 downloads) is regarded as extremely good. I don't know if this translates directly to ebooks, but it's probably at least valid as an order of magnitude indicator. There are lots of people out there who just like to collect free stuff.
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Odds are it is equally valid. At the very least. Once you factor hoaders (and the fact that the ratio includes samples) I wouldn't be shocked if Amazon came out and said it is 200-300 to 1. (Might be one of the reasons for the pressure on the pure free ebook sites.)
The thing is, there are many authors and publishers from the traditionalist world who don't get the difference beween hoarding and reading and see every unpaid download (whether from an ebookstore or... elsewhere) as a guaranteed lost sale. And similarly assume that every ibrary checkout is displacing a guaranteed sale.
Having a rational discussion on those subject requires credible, commonly accepted metrics. So far it looks like 1% might be a good starting point as long as its understood that it is an average.