I was closing the Apex Publications books for the month of May when I decided to play around with the data. I found it interesting so I thought I would share it with the world.

Through the end of May, Apex sold 3 eBooks for every print copy sold.

Incredibly, Amazon accounts for 79% of our eBook sales. The next highest vendor percentage is Nook with a whopping 7%. Third is direct sales from our website at 5%. If I broke this out by revenue, the Amazon percentage would be even greater, because other than direct sales, they nearly always have the best net receipt per copy.

With Amazon and Apex Direct accounting for 84% of our sales, it is tempting to save time and drop the other vendors. But I can’t abide the thought of letting Amazon have ALL our 3rd party sales.

The “Other” basket includes Google, Smashwords, Oyster, Scribd, Drive Thru Fiction, Sony, and a couple of other smaller vendors.

Sadly, second place Nook has seen a gradual decline as the year has progressed. Could this be a reflection of B&N’s mishandling of its tablet over the last couple of years?

The lesson of this data? That Amazon has Apex by the cajones. It’s an uncomfortable position, but most other small presses share our business structure, so at least Apex isn’t alone.