Tablets bring new opportunities for authors and marketers

 Any business that ignores ebooks and tablets as part of its marketing efforts, does so at its own peril and will miss out on major marketing opportunities.
 That's essentially the message that can be drawn from a new study by the Pew Research Center.
 Back in September Pew reported 43 percent of people age 16 and up had either an e-reader or a tablet. Following the holidays, a survey of 1,005 consumers aged 18 and up, found 50% percent of the U.S. adult population now has one of the devices.
 After the gift-giving season, about 42 percent of adults now own tablet computers, up from the 34 percent reported in September. And the number of adults who own an e-book reading device like a Kindle or Nook rose from 24 percent in September to 32 percent after the holidays.


Opportunities for Writers

 This is good news for businesses involved in ebook and content-marketing and presents new opportunities to writers. It means maybe as many as half of the people in the US - more if mobile phones are included - are looking for content to read on these devices. Authors can make money money publishing and selling works online and business can increase brand-awareness and add value by offering free guides and ebooks.
 “The percentage of adults who read an e-book in the past year has risen to 28 percent, up from 23 percent at the end of 2012,” the researchers said in a press statement. “At the same time, about seven in ten Americans reported reading a book in print, up four percentage points after a slight dip in 2012, and 14 percent of adults listened to an audiobook.”
 This indicates that half of the people who own tablets use them to read ebooks and that number rises annually.
 Tablets will continue to grow in importance when it comes to internet marketing. Adobe reported tablets account for more traffic to global sites than smartphones. It also found 55 percent of tablet owners make purchases with their device, compared with 28 percent of smartphone users. And even with apps, only 38 percent of smartphone users employed an app to make a purchase, compared to 46 percent of tablet users.
 It is clear tablets are not just a passing fad and marketers and authors need to exploit and make their content available to this growing market.

Pew Research Center study
Adobe infographic

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