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According to the first annual research report by the Online Publisher’s Association and comScore, annual revenues for paid online content grew 92% in 2001 to $675 million.
The report goes on to measure the First Quarter of 2002 and indicates online content revenues grew 155% over Q1 of 2001 to $300 million.
Are you in the ‘pool’ yet?
These revenue figures are staggering if you stop to think about it. In reviewing the report and figures, the categories that were measured include monthly, quarterly and annual subscriptions as well as one time ‘download’ types of sales.
These categories include everything ebooks, including self-published materials.
This is the information revolution promised by the dot com boom that didn’t really materialize.
The report goes on to say that the number of buyers in Q1 of 2002 was up to 12.4 million people and that EVERY category measured was up over 100%.
There is a market for paid information ladies and gentlemen. And this includes ebooks, self-published reports, newsletters, ezines and more. And it’s a BIG market and growing.
There is scant data like this available to be able to truly measure and evaluate the information product (infoproduct) market. This report is truly a breakthrough in that it used actual consumer purchases that were monitored by comScore directly from consumers’ computers.
The user sample was from over 1 million users who granted comScore permission to monitor their online purchase behavior.
What does this mean to you?
Simply put, it means there is an appetite for information (we already knew that) and more importantly, the consumer is willing to pay for that appetite, especially if it is quality.
Its time to ask yourself “what experience, knowledge, processes or methods do I know that I could offer to others?”
What type of ebook could you write that might help a person or company to solve their problems, cut costs, shortcut painful experiences, increase revenue or accomplish their goals?
There is a lot of free information on the web to help you with your writing. Just because you’ve never written a book or ebook before shouldn’t stop you from doing so now.
Additionally, don’t think for a moment that the World Wide Web is so vast and packed with free information that it would be impossible for you to sell yours. It’s not true.
Yes, the WWW is full of lots of information. A lot of it is garbage, as you know. Quality information to teach business owners, managers or functional experts ‘how-to’ do something using a proven method, process or technique that you know is really worth something to them.
The proof is in the numbers. Give people what they want in a quality way and they will pay for it!
Read the report for yourself at The Online Publishers Association web site.
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