When Barb Perfetti and Lori James launched All Romance Ebooks in 2006, publishers didn't think an all-romance e-book retailer would work. Since then AllRomanceEBooks.com has grown from 2,000 titles to 30,000 and so far sales in 2009 are up 250%. All Romance Ebooks has done so well, the two digital entrepreneurs launched a general interest e-book retailing site, OmniLit.com, this July. James credits their success to “listening to consumers and to our publishers.”
OmniLit also seems to be a hit. While the two sites are distinct, James said they are integrated, and customers can shop simultaneously at either site while using the same shopping cart. OmniLit offers 250,000 branded e-books with and without DRM, and both sites offer e-books in every format from PDFs (the most popular) to EPub. The company has grown from selling titles from 18 romance publishers to about 3,000 different publishers supplying titles to both sites.
James said the sites sells many more DRM-free e-books than titles with copyright protection, and she called smartphones “the best way to get e-books” to new consumers. For 2010, James plans to begin offering downloadable audiobooks through both sites.
