Dropbox In 30 Minutes has now been available for about nine months. For nearly as long, I have been monitoring interest in the Dropbox user guide, by closely watching sales. At first the book was only available as an ebook for the Amazon Kindle, but by the start of 2013 it was available for multiple e-reader, screen, and paper formats, including:

• PDF (first via e-junkie, now gumroad)
• Barnes&Noble/Nook
• Apple/iTunes
• Kobo
• Paperback (via print-on-demand distributor CreateSpace)
• Direct purchases of .mobi and .epub (which bypasses Amazon.com, iTunes, and other corporate ebook stores)

It was fascinating watching the evolution of the readership, especially after the paperback edition of Dropbox In 30 Minutes was released last November. While the Kindle edition has been a strong seller from the start, sales have plateaued. Meanwhile, the paperback rapidly gained  fans and by February 2013 had overtaken the Kindle and all other versions. Note, however, that Amazon is also responsible for all paperback sales — it owns the POD service CreateSpace, so the paperback listing is automatically fed into an Amazon product page (which is now linked with the Kindle product page).

Monitoring a sales slowdown in ebooks

Getting back to the Kindle version hitting a sales plateau: I’ve been thinking a lot about what could be happening. Certainly, there is more competition for readers, both on Amazon itself and online. But there are other possibilities, including falling interest in Dropbox among my target audience. What could cause a once red-hot technology to slow down in popularity? Factors could include competition from giants in the space (for instance, Microsoft Skydrive OneDrive or Google Drive), negative publicity (such as security concerns), or a maxing out of the potential audience. For now, I am discounting the idea that Dropbox is dropping in popularity, and am more focused on the competition — and how to make Dropbox In 30 Minutes and the free online resources such as videos and blog posts even better.