Readmoo is the largest digital bookstore in Taiwan and the company generated 400 million NT, which is around $1.4 million USD in sales, over the course of 2021. This was an increase of over 60%, which is mind blowing. Taiwan readers accounted for 60% of revenue, and other markets such as Hong Kong and the United States accounted for 15%. According to internal data, the company has 900,000 users and 136 million minutes were read last year, which was an increase of 49%.
One of the ways that digital book sales have been increasing, was primary attributed to savvy marketing. Readmoo has doubled down on their “mooTube Reading Mooshu” broadcast on their YouTube channel, which introduces best-selling books and themed book lists in a weekly episode, with a cumulative playing time of 360,000 hours of content. The Classic and Youth podcasts basically does the same thing, but in audio form.
In 2021, driven by film and television adaptations such as “Dune”, “Abandoned Soldier”, “The Magician on the Flyover”, as well as the re-publishing of the Japanese classic “64”, the literary novel category will return to Readmoo for the largest proportion of sales, which an 68% increase in performance. The business financial management category that followed closely was topped by “Atomic Habits”, and the new books “Mentality of Getting Rich” and “Gray Scale Thinking” were strong, resulting in a 53% increase in the performance of this category. Light novels, manga and the comic category saw explosive growth. Comics saw a 212% increase in sales, while light novels increased by 117%.
Audiobooks are the fastest growing segment in digital publishing, all over the world. Readmoo stated that their audio sales increased by 93% in 2021. Literary novels accounted for the largest proportion of sales, followed by teenagers and children, and inspirational growth. In addition to listening to stories, audiobooks are also used in interactive learning with children, or as a practical tool for self-healing and spiritual growth. Overall, in 2021, the total number of audiobook listeners will reach 4,200, an increase of 68%, the total listening time will be 1.65 million minutes, an increase of 135%, and up to 82% of readers will listen to them on mobile phones, showing that this form is gradually being accepted by readers. There is a lot more room for development in this sector for Readmoo.
The Mooink Readers are fairly popular, but the average user is reading digital content on their mobile phone. Mobile users accounted for 42.3% of purchases, while Mooink readers were 31.4%. The rest were spread among other devices, such as tablets.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.