There was a great article on Media Bistro recently about who is buying romance books, and I thought it was something that could be applied quite easily to help all writers – but especially those who write ebooks – to market themselves better.

I don’t want to simply repeat the information in the article here, but suffice to say that the writer details a report that breaks down all kinds of things, such as which devices show the most sales, what file formats are the most popular, where people are buying these books, and which books they are buying.

Starting with the last thing, it brings me hope to learn that 97% of the books that are selling have received at least moderately good reviews – write a book that people like and it will sell seems to be the message.

It’s also interesting to note that 15% of romance readers are buying their books from the websites of the actual publishers. Obviously, that still means the vast majority are going to the big online retailers, but 15% isn’t a trivial number and should be intriguing for anyone thinking of selling through their own site.

Imagine having this kind of information for the genre in which you write. If everyone is buying PDFs instead of EPUBs, you might be able to stop wasting your time with the format. Or concentrate more on Nook owners than those who use Kindles, if you’re getting twice as many sales there – or, alternatively, this information might make you realize that you need to increase the amount of marketing you do for the Kindle.

This is why it is so important to track the trends in your sales and be proactive with your marketing techniques. If you follow closely enough, you might be able to fix “problems” before they happen, or catch a big wave of sales because you see something happening ahead of time. Remember, your work has only just started after you put your book out there.