Instead of a post about occultism, for a change I will deal today with “Voodoo Statistics” (i.e. please don’t shout at me too much in regard to my methodology) – in order to answer the question, what are the Top 10 Countries in which market an ebook in the English language?
By my calculations they are (biggest potential market first):
| Rank | Country | % of potential world market for English language ebooks |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | United States | 42% |
| 2. | United Kingdom | 10% |
| 3. | Germany | 8% |
| 4. | Canada | 4% |
| 5. | France | 4% |
| 6. | Australia | 3% |
| 7. | Philippines | 3% |
| 8. | The Netherlands | 3% |
| 9. | Italy | 2% |
| 10. | Spain | 2% |
“Wait!” I hallucinate that I hear you ask. “Germany above Canada? How can that be so?” Quite simple: there are more people in Germany who speak English as a second language than there are in Canada who speak it as either a first or second language. This indeed is the reason why non-anglophone countries make it onto the list at all.
Other factors used to determine ranking include % of people with Internet access and relative poverty / richness. India for example has 125,000,000 English speakers, but because over half the population live below the Poverty line (defined by the UN as earning less than $2 / day) and only 7.5% have access to the internet, the potential market for ebooks must logically be a mere fraction of this number.
Of the countries of the rest of the world, most of the member states of the European Union ranked highly. The highest ranked country in Asia was Turkey at number 14. The highest ranked country in Africa was Nigeria at number 22, whilst Brazil was the highest ranked country in South America at number 23.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Holiday Reading & Ebook Marketing
Happy equinox! Today I am going to take a break from strictly paranormal or occultish type ruminations and concentrate more on a topic relevant to authors.
According to a new study, thousands of people – in Britain at any rate – only ever read a novel when they are going on holiday! For those of a statistical bent, the total sample was 8600, drawn from visitors to the website TripAdvisor (i.e. who may therefore be expected to be travellers and holiday-makers), whilst the percentage of people admitting to being holiday-only readers was 23% (or approximately just under 2000).
Although this survey has not, to my knowledge, been peer-reviewed, and the fact the methodology may be open to question, I beg leave to report that from my own personal experience I do find that my own sales do go up slightly in August each year: I have noticed this both this year and in 2011.
So, if you will indulge me for a moment: let us postulate that the conclusion drawn by the survey is true. This suggests an excellent method for authors to make use of this information, to wit, specifically time your promotional campaigns to coincide with the school holidays. Typically the most obvious would be the long summer break, but in fact, all of the holidays have potential in this regard, given that a number of people will want to jet-off on each occasion, e.g. people who depart around Christmas either to go skiing or for winter sun.
Hence, to afford other authors the opportunity of testing this theory out, here are the school vacation dates for 2012 until summer 2014.
Source: Southend Borough Council. Dates arranged by other local authorities may vary. Authors wanting to promote their books outside the UK should check local vacation dates themselves.
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