Every Indie writer will tell you the same thing.

Writing a book is one thing, selling it another.

In the last couple of years book selling sites have entered the market that offer paid book promotions that are “blasted” to their subscribers daily via email. Among these are BookBub, BookBlast, Kindle Books and Tips, and Book Gorilla.  Each of them has its own particular spin on the blast approach with different criteria for eligibility to gain access to the site. However they share in common the use of large email lists to reach people with ads about books.

Kindle Books and Tips also uses a free app to get the word out.  In its case, ads go out to certain subscribers via email and to app holders.  I am not certain how much overlap there is between those two groups in Kindle Books and Tips subscriber lists.

If selling books is the biggest challenge authors face, building a list of subscribers is the thorniest component of that challenge.

If an author had Amazon’s subscriber list at his disposal, he could sell the fire out of his books.

Amazon, however, is not about to give an author its list.

So the writer looks out her window at millions of readers who know nothing of her work and longs to make contact with them.

Along comes a funny little deal called an app. She develops one, makes it available for free, and no one cares.  No one cares because the app is as invisible as the author.

I’m getting off base here, but the point is that writers’ biggest problem is obscurity, and the current cure for that is one of two things: an email blast to a list of subscribers or an app in the hands of thousands of people that presents the author’s book.

Now to the original question.

As a book buyer do you prefer to learn about book deals through emails from sites to which you subscribe, or through apps to which you subscribe?

I’m an old guy, so to me email seems new.  But to many people email is a thing of the past.  This sentiment is a product of the coming of one thing that has changed the world of communications as we know it:  smart phones.

Smart phones are entertainment centers we hold in our hands.  They are our lifeline to all the stuff we want to monitor. On the book side of the equation, they hold Kindle apps, Audible apps, iTune apps.  You name it.

I find myself moving away from email.  It is a necessary evil that serves its purposes. But it’s not entertainment.

I guess that’s why apps will take over.

Have I answered my own question?

I don’t know.  How would you prefer to learn about books, email or app?