Some numbers just shouldn't be trumpeted

Point in case, Lulu.com's iBookstore numbers:

As of August 1st:

• Over 1,000 Lulu titles available on the iBookstore


• Over 5,000 Lulu eBooks have been purchased through the iBookstore


• Over $23,000 in Lulu author royalties paid from iBookstore sales

That's over a period of almost four months. They might as well say in that box: You'd make more money selling CDRs with PDFs of your book on the street corner, or publishing your book on Blogger with adsense.

My point is merely about the rather mystifying decision to publicize those pathetic numbers. Why the numbers are so low is another question entirely. Part of it is no doubt that Lulu.com is essentially a self-publishing platform and therefore is mainly, if not entirely, niche and amateur content. But another big factor is that the Apple iBookstore isn't selling much of anything to anyone. Moneyquote:

In August, author Joe Konrath revealed he was selling 200 books a day for the Kindle and only 100 per month on the iBookstore. This has now accumulated to 70,000 Amazon sales and just 400 sales via the iBookstore. [ed. note: emphasis added]