Samhain Publishing Celebrates Eight Years of Original eBook Fiction

International publisher Samhain Publishing today celebrated its eighth anniversary publishing original ebook fiction. The anniversary, which coincides with the Celtic holiday of Samhain (celebrated from sunset on Oct. 31 to sunset on Nov. 1) marks a long successful run in bringing fiction to readers in ever-faster and more flexible formats.

According to publisher Lindsey Faber, this anniversary is particularly exciting for Samhain, as the company is preparing to launch an all-new website and store, uniquely designed to meet the needs of today's reader. "At Samhain we've always dedicated ourselves to serving our reader base with great fiction and high-value features such as our All-Format benefit, which allows readers to have lifetime access to their book purchase, in whatever format they need. So if readers upgrade their e-reader, they don't have to re-buy a past book. It's there for them in their library. With the launch of the new site, we look forward to rolling out new initiatives and unique customer rewards programs to continue serving our readership effectively."

Since launching with just four titles, the publishing house has since published more than 2200 works and has expanded to include Horror and Retro Romance lines (digital rereleases of previously print-only romance titles from the 70s onward). Samhain's staff has also grown from three full-time employees to eighteen employees and more than thirty contractors located throughout the world-and from a charter group of three authors to more than six hundred. The company has watched the reading habits of book lovers transform over the past several years, with a number of key trends standing out over the past year:

• Digital fiction continues to grow as a thriving industry. According to the Association for American Publishers (AAP), ebook revenue among publishers surveyed was $1.54 billion, up 41% from 2011. When broken down by format, ebooks accounted for 22.55% of revenue, up from 17 % in 2011. Note-this number does not include book sales for independently published works.
• The population of ebook readers is growing. According to Pew Research, in the past year, the number of those who read an ebook in the past year increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older in December 2011 to 23% in November 2012. At the same time, the percentage of Americans who read a printed book in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population in 2011 to 67% in 2012.
• Romance is king among all fiction genres. According to the Business of Consumer Book Publishing, 2013, romance was the top-performing category on the bestseller lists in 2012, with 1.438 billion in sales in 2012, giving it the largest share of the U.S. consumer market at 16.7%.

To learn more about Samhain Publishing's complete lines of Romance, Retro Romance and Horror, and to order books at a special discounted rate, visit the publisher online at http://www.samhainpublishing.com, or follow them on Twitter @samhainpub.

About Samhain Publishing

Launched in 2005 with a vision of bringing extraordinary fiction to compulsive readers (who sometimes can't wait for a book to actually be printed), Samhain Publishing is an international publisher of ebook and traditional print fiction. One of the most prominent voices of original ebook fiction, Samhain represents some of today's brightest authors of romance and horror. To learn why at Samhain "it's all about the story...", visit Samhain Publishing online at http://www.samhainpublishing.com.

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