"We are extremely proud and excited to have reached the five million member benchmark," explains Nicolas Gremion, CEO of Paradise Publishers – the parent company of Free-eBooks.net and its affiliated websites. "But those of us on the Paradise Publishers team give the credit to our loyal fans and readers. They are the ones that made it happen, and we think of our five million members as the most important components of our continuing success."

 

Paradise Publisher's websites receive more than two million visitors per month, and have provided more than 20,000,000 eBook downloads – making it one of the most popular eBook destinations in the industry. More than 10,000 titles a day are downloaded from Free-eBooks.net. It is frequently rated #1 by Google for "free eBooks" and is consistently ranked within the top five searches.

 

The website, which grows by approximately 100,000 new members per month offers libraries in English, Spanish, and Portuguese, too. Free-eBooks.net has 3.75 million English-speaking members, plus a million members who prefer to read their books in Spanish and more than 225,000 Portuguese readers. Right now the site is also in the process of expanding into other languages in order to make great literature available to an even larger worldwide audience.

 

"We also have a VIP program with more than 60,000 members," Gremion adds, "and every month an average of 1,800 new members sign up for VIP benefits. For a nominal membership fee, which is reinvested to help us continue to grow and expand, they can download unlimited titles in a wide variety of formats compatible with virtually every eReader and mobile device."

 

Free-eBooks.net launched back in 2006, during a time when many industry observers were skeptical that electronic, digitally-formatted books would catch on in a big way. A lot has changed since then and today hundreds of millions of consumers buy and read eBooks. "When we started, many people told us that we were making a mistake, because eBooks were going to be a short-lived passing trend," recalls Gremion. "But we are excited to say that our perseverance and faith has paid off in a big way. Reaching this benchmark is a tremendous honor."

 

The popularity of audiobooks has also been hinged on new platforms that allow their sale and marketing.

 

Currently, IBISWorld sees no dominant force in the industry, but websites like Audible and iTunes are among the notable movers.

 

An interesting addition to the market is Audioboom Group PLC's (London Stock Exchange: BOOM.L) social media platform Audioboo.fm, which mostly hosts spoken word content such as news and sports broadcasts, as well as podcasts.

 

The platform already has 2,000 channels, over a dozen of which allow the preview and sale of audiobooks. Although small in number, the channels represent major audiobook publishers such as BBC, AudioGo, Random House, and HarperCollin's Harper Audio.

 

Audioboo, which has been called the audio version of Youtube, has 2.5 million subscribers and 13 million active users through its website, mobile applications and content partners. The platform's features include embedded players that allow the clips to play on Twitter and Facebook.

 

In addition to audiobook sales, channel owners can also strike a revenue sharing deal with Audioboo through the use of pre- and post-roll advertising.

 

Because of this feature, publishers and broadcasters may release free content with the hopes of getting advertising revenue in return.

 

Audioboom has over 1,700 content partners, including the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, CBS, Sky Sports, Premier League, Southern Cross Austereo, Reuters, CNBC, Universal and Fox.