I’m excited to say that there has been a slight improvement with the iBookstore in that I can actually verify that my books are there. iBookstore is now available in the UK and you can get it on iPhones, and I asked a work colleague to check whether my books were there. They were, and In Heat and In Heat: Mating Call both have five star ratings, which was rather exciting to see!
It’s a shame that my only way of seeing iBookstore is via someone else’s iPhone if they happen to have the app installed. I still think Apple need to wake up and realise that without a physical website URL we can send readers to, we can’t effectively promote out e-books on the iBookstore. I think the problem stems from the fact that they’re primarily a computer / software program sort of company, and don’t really have a firm grasp of what it takes to sell books online—namely a good website where people can browse the books and decide to buy, and where authors can direct their readers who might be interested in buying their book for a certain platform.
I would like to see them open a website but I don’t think it will happen. I’m eager to see if my sales have picked up at all since they last sent data to Smashwords back in June. I hadn’t sold much then. I don’t think that the twenty-something e-books I had sold on iBookstore in two months of my books being available on there could compare at all with the several thousand I sold at Amazon in that same timeframe.
The reason I asked my work colleague whether he could get the iBookstore on his iPad in the UK (which he then informed me he could get it on his iPhone too) was because a fellow author emailed me, having read my previous blog rant about the iBookstore, asking if anything had changed since I posted it back in April. Nothing has really changed except that I’ve verified that my paranormal romance books are indeed there, but at least I can tell him that if he has an iPhone or iPad, or knows someone who does, that he can see if his books appear there too when he submits them.
Does being able to see the books on iBookstore in the UK tempt me to purchase an iPhone or iPad? Not really. I’m not actually tempted to buy an Amazon Kindle either, although I do use Amazon’s Kindle PC program and find it’s a good piece of software.
I don’t spend enough time reading to warrant owning an e-reader of any sort. While I have grand designs when it comes to taking breaks and having some reading time, I often end up engaged in something else entirely—namely writing, developing websites, or drawing. (or reading manga, but that’s a beast of an addiction)
