How many books are currently published on Smashwords?
MARK COKER: We currently publish over 2,600 books and we’re adding hundreds more each month. YM: Do you think that ebooks are the future of publishing? MC: Of book publishing, yes. Four factors will drive ebooks to become more popular than print books: 1. Price: Print books are simply too expensive for the vast majority of the world’s literate population, and now they must compete with myriad free Internet media. Unlike print books, ebooks have no printing costs, no shipping costs, no inventorying, and no returns. 2. Readability: The early adopters for dedicated ebook reading devices like the Kindle are middle aged adults. For many adults, once you’re over age 30 or 40, your eyes go downhill. Most print books are printed in tiny type to save on production expenses. With ebook readers, the customer can customize the font size for easier reading. The quality of the e-reading screens has improved dramatically over the last ten years, and the improvements will only accelerate from here. Al
