Tonight was the start of the Character Voice workshop here on the Oregon Coast. It’s a great group of professional writers attending and it’s going to be a really fun week. Zero doubt about that.
But a couple things stunned me tonight. First, as the workshop gathered, numbers of the writers walked up to me and handed me a copy of their latest book. In paper. Trade paper.
A very nice gift and I’m looking forward to reading all of them after things settle.
The second thing that stunned me was not only the sheer number of people who handed me books (some showed me more than one), but that every one of the books was indie published by each writer’s press. Not one traditional published book in the mix. A number of novels, a number of novellas as stand-alone books, and a number of short story collections.
And every book, without exception, looked as good, if not better, than any cover or design layout I’ve seen out of traditional publishing lately. Each book had fully professional art, professional layout and fonts, gripping back cover copy, clean and clear interior design, everything. (And I know these writers and I know the content is as good as the exterior.)
If you would have told me an evening like this was going to happen two years ago, I would have said there was no chance. None. Zero. Zip.
Wow, are things changing in publishing.
Thank you, writers, for all for the wonderful gifts of your books tonight.
And for the even more amazing gift of a vast amount of hope for the future of the publishing business.
Speaking of writers being their own publishers, I’d like to ask:
a) If I plan on writing many books a year spanning many genres, should I have multiple pseudonyms?
b) If I’m a rather recluse person and wouldn’t ever like to let anyone know who all these pseudonyms are, what picture do I put on the back cover?
c) If I spread my work across multiple names, won’t that dilute my web presence? (Since Dean always says an author needs this many books to make money and such.) How does this dilution work with the `different pen name for each genre` and the `good authors dont write more than a book a year` issues?
On another topic, Smashwords’ FAQ says:
“Can I use a Smashwords ISBN elsewhere?
We do not recommend this. ”
Is it actually OK? (I hope so, because getting ISBNs in my country costs an arm and a leg.)
Thanks
Allan,
#1…Up to you. No rules. Just think of your readers and make sure they don’t get confused. Romance readers tend to hate horror and mystery readers tend to get angry at science fiction at times. Names tend to be genre-based, but no rules.
#2… I can see no reason why anyone but a doctor or someone under contract restrictions like I am, would ever hide a name. Makes no sense and causes too many problems. And all writers are recluses. No one knows what a writer looks like or cares.
#3… Not a clue what you are asking. You quoted a couple myths about “good authors” whatever those are, but again up to you. But sounds to me like you are making marketing decisions far, far before you write a book and that’s just bad business, to be flat blunt. Write what you are passionate about, what is interesting to you, what you love or want to read. Then after you are finished worry about marketing of that book or pen name for the book or whatever. NEVER WRITE TO MARKET. That way lies craziness, bad writing, and pain. Write what you love. This new world allows that now, why do anything else?
You don’t need ISBN’s. Smashwords gives you a free one, Amazon gives you a tracking number, CreateSpace gives you a free ISBN. Why would anyone ever pay for one in this world?
Hope those blunt answers help. I’m in blunt workshop mode here. (grin)
That’s fantastic news to hear. It only remains to be seen how the gap between self-publishers and bookstores will be bridged. I can imagine a bookstore surviving by building a reputation for having terrific books that no other physical store around has.
J.A., what gap? If you act like a publisher, bookstores buy your books. And if you have them in the extended distribution, bookstores buy your books. Not sure what gap you are talking about.
things are definitely changing. It’s exciting. If we’ve had this many changes in the past few years I wonder what the publishing world will look like in another two or three?
What do you think?
t
Tracey, what will publishing look like in two years? Honestly, my gut sense is that it will pretty much look like it looks now, with minor changes around the edges and a few new smaller players in the mix. Traditional publishing will be chugging right along, doing what it’s doing, with a few minor publishing company crashes of the idiot companies that didn’t move fast enough and are top heavy. But those will catch a lot of news yet be minor in the larger picture.
A large share of writers will be indie publishing in one fashion or another, with one level of success or another. Some people in traditional will still be looking down their noses at indie publishing because they must to protect their jobs in their own minds. And they will have zero way of understanding what I saw last night with those books. New York centric editors and publishing people just can’t imagine how anyone in the great unwashed of the rest of the planet can produce a quality product. They really, really don’t and can’t understand. I know, weird, but true.
Electronic publishing will be leveling off around 25-30% of all books sold and indie publishing writers will be going more and more to physical books, adding to the focus of electronic-only. (Again, saw that last night, the beginning of that trend.)
The ease of electronic publishing was like the gateway drug for indie writers, and the thrill of holding a book in your hand is just too much for many of us. Many indie writers are rightly figuring that if they can produce an electronic book, they can do the extra work to produce a paper book and get to the majority of readers. And they are right. Huge trend coming that will change everything when you think of Kris’s article a week or so ago about scarcity publishing vs abundance.
There will be more independent bookstores in two years then there is now. That’s an easy prediction, since the number of ID bookstores has been growing for the last four years.
Now off to the workshop here… later…
I was handed yet another book by yet another novelist this morning at the workshop. Wonderful and beautifully done yet again. I love this new world.
Whoa thanks, Dean! Do talk blunt, it makes things easier to understand!
What I was asking in #3:
Say I write my first ten books. Half mystery, half romance. Then I remember I better use a different name for each genre. So the question: do two authors/pseudonyms with 5 books sell as much as one with 10?
If not, should I just splash “a **ROMANCE** by author” on the cover so people don’t get confused and be done with it?
But yeah, you’re right, I should be writing. I can always worry about all this later.
Believe it or not, getting an ISBN in Brazil requires a $100 registration plus a small flat fee for each book. It might sound like change if you’re paid in dollars, but here it is quite a bunch.
Crystal, I know ISBNs are not free. You can pay up to $250 each if you want. I’m just saying use the free services provided. And for Smashwords, the 10% fee is a distribution fee, just like in the bigger world of trade publishing distributors usually charge around 10%. All standard.
Allan, more copies of books under the same name sell more because readers if they like one of your works have more to choose from. And being clear on covers is always a good thing. And keeping readers clear on genre is also good for readers to know what they are reading and therefore be happy. But again, it’s up to you as the writer and publisher. I’m just talking in general.
The Smashword ISBN isn’t really free. Yes, you need an ISBN to publish at Apple. Yes, Smashword does NOT charge you for the ISBN.
But, you PAY Smashwords a percentage forever for them to upload that epub ebook to Apple for you when you can do it yourself.
I’m NOT saying Smashwords doesn’t provide a valuable service -especially for non-US writers or writers without a Mac computer or without the money to buy ISBNs.
I’m just saying those Smashword ISBNs are NOT really free.
Also, if you ever decide to withdraw your book from Createspace [meaning have someone else print your book], you cannot take that free ISBN you got from Createspace with you.
And perhaps, as I reread what I’ve written, in the new world of publishing none of this really matters.
Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me, Dean? *big smile*
And do you think not hiding that one writes too much has any impact on readers? Do they think less of of a writer knowing he writes ten novels in a year or does it not really matter?
I guess that’s the reason I’ve been asking so much about pseudonyms and such.
Thanks a bunch, Dean
Allan, old myth created by New York because they couldn’t handle a lot of books, and created by university programs because English teachers couldn’t read that many papers. Writing slowly is not how it works. Even James Patterson and Nora Roberts have shoved traditional publishers into place. Both are six or seven or more books per year and they have millions of fans. But again, up to you. But writing fast being bad is just a myth. I did a number of posts about that in Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series that you can find at the top of the page under the tab.
… “I love this new world.”
Digital has changed everything. Thank you for sharing how these creative folks have embraced it. It is vital everyone *see* how Musicians, Artists, Writers, creatives of all sorts are ripping the rug out from under their corporate keepers. Vinyl 45rpm record, ha.
Yep, two years ago, holding those gifts would have been a laughable notion at best. This post is the culmination of every post you and Kris have shared with us. Thank you. Thank you. -Steve
“Allan on 25 Mar 2012 at 7:30 am – Say I write my first ten books. Half mystery, half romance. Then I remember I better use a different name for each genre. So the question: do two authors/pseudonyms with 5 books sell as much as one with 10?”
Allan, think long term. Those two authors will do better than one author alone. If you want the names to be linked together have them write books together. Think “Preston & Child”. They write as a team, and separately.
That means the “team” writes stories that each individual writer would not do, so that is three different styles of story, each clearly linked so that the reader can find them.
Then you can do like Nora Roberts does, and write as J.D. Robb, and clearly state that the name J.D. Robb is a pen name of Nora Roberts so as not to confuse her readers on the style of story. Her series, that starts with the book _Naked in Death_, is listed as Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb.
You can have each of your two authors/pseudonyms also write under clear pen names. _Pen Name A_ writing as _An Obvious Pen Name_. _Pen Name B_ writing as _Blatantly Obvious Pen Name_. And maybe have those two write as a team as well.
That gives you six different styles/series with each pointing to the other names. When anyone goes looking for one of the writers they will see all of the different pen names and teams listed in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list, while “you”, the real person, are invisible.
This is the future, and it is about time that it is finally here. HA!
Allen, what is too fast, for a reader? I read about a book a week. If a writer I love is pushing out six high quality books a year, I’m thrilled, not upset! I don’t think it’s even possible to write fast enough to produce at a faster rate than fans can consume. Your books are not competing with each other: as Dean’s wife would say, that’s the old scarcity model, not the abundance one. Each book serves to boost all the others.
Dean, glad you’re having a great time out there. You surely earned it after all the work the last six months!
The only quibble I have, and it’s a small one, is your percentage prediction. You said 25-30% of all books; I think that depends heavily on academic uptake of books, since non-consumer books represent such a huge share of books sold, and are mostly print today. With Florida and other states planning to go all ebook for K-12 textbooks by 2015, we could see rapid changes there once things hit a tipping point. Colleges are already beginning to make the leap.
In consumer/trade books, most big publishers have already crossed 25% digital, and might account for half or less of all ebooks sold. In terms of unit sales for trade books, I think we’ll be around 80% ebook in two years, here in the US. Of course, trade books are only half the book market. That’s why the textbook issue is going to be so important. How fast high schools and colleges go ebook only is going to matter a lot.
Kevin, I was only meaning fiction. I never talk about any other area of publishing here. Sorry, I should have made that clear again. I doubt that fiction sales will be above 30% of all books sold in two or three years. Last year it as 18%. It might grow beyond that slowly over many years. I used to think we would end up in fiction by 2015 around 50%. Now I don’t think so. Growth trends are leveling fairly quickly. Of course, the figures for this month, after the Christmas rush, will be high, just like last year was high at this point.
I agree – I love this new world of publishing. I have heard the complaints about unprofessional editing, book covers, etc from some folks. I just don’t see it. Yes, there are some mistakes in some indie-publishers, but imho not any more than I would find in a “professional” book.
Most indies are doing a very good job. I like to read indies better than supposed professionals because the stories have that new popping quality. I was complaining in 2006 that certain writers I liked were beginning to become stale because the story line was the same over and over.
I really believe that the Indies have brought back the idea that a story does not have to be the same every time to fit in a series.
It makes it all the better for the reader.
Cyn
Wish I could have been there. They’re always a gas, even if I may never look at another cathedral the same way again.
How fast have things changed? Well, to use your workshops as a guide, you fired up the novel workshops again two years ago last February (with the caveat that submission packages had to go out the door to New York on our way out of town).
The last novel workshop was a little more than one year ago. (At the time, I was still three months away from being convinced to buy InDesign, which seems impossible since I’m sure I’ve been using that program forever, rather than only nine months).
SO… my question to you: With all the fun we’re having now, how did writers survive before the dam broke? Do you ever think back to the difference in the work days, then vs. now?
Rick, great question for a full blog post topic. I’ll get on that. Thanks!
Well, Dean all I can say is you inspire us to act. I have followed your direction and have every book I have written (seven since we met plus fifteen short stories) on both Smashwords and Createspace. The only struggle I have had is in getting use to the pricing but even there you told us to stand proud. My current guide is whatever create space suggests plus getting at least the $1 you suggested for the wide distribution.
Coming from the business world having different ISBN’s from different companies is no different than having different SKU numbers for slight variation in product design.
Since I want to be a writer all of this gets in my way and I really like how easy both companies have made the work of publishing.
Finally, the only thing I would turn around is to go to Createspace first and Smashwords second; 75% of the market first, 25% of the market second.
Oh I did read that whole series, plus the other two (Think Like A Publisher and New World of Publishing).
I get what you say that speed has nothing to do with quality, I was just unsure about what the readers current opinion on the subject was.
Thanks for clearing that up!
This is *so* cool!
I’ve been promising I’ll get to POD myself soon. Now I’m really longing to!
Time to plot when I can fire up InDesign without cutting into writing time. Grin!
Oh, OK. For fiction, most major publishers are reporting around 25% ebook right now, Dean. Some are a bit lower. I think all of the bigger folks are above 20% now though.
And of course, that’s *maybe* as much as half the unit sales of ebooks sold. So the actual percentage is much, much higher.
Personally, for unit sales I think we’re already closing on ebooks being 50% of fiction, if we haven’t already passed it.
The data to prove OR disprove that is virtually non-existent. But the best ballpark I calculate for fiction ebooks *right now* is roughly 50% of unit sales (as ebooks), and probably something like 32% of revenue. Plus or minus 5% or so, depending largely on how much publishers are fudging the numbers they submit to the AAP. Based on some rather extensive research and math.
I agree with Shatzkin’s prediction: ebooks will represent 80% of all fiction and narrative non-fiction unit sales within 18-24 months (in the USA).
Not including freebie stuff in that – those aren’t sales, although they’re an interesting mess in their own right.
ANYway. =) Have fun at the class. I really do want to get out West for one of your sessions at some point, they sound AMAZING!
Kevin, not a clue where you are getting your numbers. Actual numbers last year were 18%. Of all fiction books were sold electronically. From a combination of reported sources through publisher’s organizations and also Bowker.
So again, we are arguing about the future. I just don’t see it getting past a yearly average of 30%. I would be surprised if right now the number is not higher because of the Christmas sales, but those settle down just as they did last year at this time. And never in the world will it reach 80% in the next thirty or forty years. Not a chance. I know indie writers want to think that, but won’t happen. And to do it within 24 months as Shatzkin thinks means almost all bookstores will need to collapse, that books won’t be selling out of Walmart, that all distribution chains will collapse for paper books, that CreateSpace will dry up, along with LightningSource and Lulu and so on. Sorry, not going to happen. It’s not even logical. And at the pace that electronic book sales were slowing over the last half of last year, not even possible with the numbers.
So I guess in a few years we shall see, huh? But personally, as an indie publisher, I’m betting on both electronic and paper because no matter the percentage, I want to be able to reach ALL possible readers.
(Dean, you know I love working the numbers on this stuff, and going back and forth with smart folks like you makes me think, which is FUN. But if it ever gets annoying, please let me know – not my intent.)
According to the AAP (which only counts very large publishers, based on their self-reported numbers), ebooks overall for the year represented about 20% of 2011 trade book sales. That was a growth of 117% over 2010. Smaller than the 150% or so of 2010 over 2009, but growth is bound to shrink. Still, ebooks more than doubled their sales revenue, counting *only* the bigger publishers.
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/new-data-u-s-e-book-revenues-up-117-in-2011/
According to Bowker at DBW, ebooks represented 26% of adult fiction sales – again using self reported numbers from major publishers, because Bowker has no other way to track ebook sales. Fiction is higher than trade book industry averages, for ebook percentages.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-e-book-bummer-growth-slower-than-thought-incremental-not-exponenti/
The “bummer” mentioned in that second article is slower than expected growth of new ebook buyers. Yet the AAP also reported that as of June 2011, one in six adults in the US owned a tablet or ereader, and another one in six planned to buy one in the next six months. In January 2012, the AAP reported that ereader and tablet ownership in the US doubled over the December holidays. Slower than some folks hoped, perhaps – but still substantial growth.
And remember, the AAP is only tracking, at best, one out of every two fiction ebooks sold. Which means if the handful of major publishers they get data from have ebook sales which represent 26% of the adult fiction market by themselves, then the actual fiction ebook percentage is already at 41% or so. And Bowker was working with old data – likely the pre-holiday December data release from the AAP, which revealed sales data from two months prior. The number is almost assuredly higher by now.
So, predictions?
B&N has lost money on their retail chain three years running now. It’s in their annual reports; the only bright spot for them is their college stores, which make enough money to keep them in the black. Even if ebook growth rates continue to decrease, they’re still going to grow. I don’t believe B&N’s chain is sustainable anymore. Like the music chains before them, they’re simply not going to survive the combination of digital media and online sales of physical media. In two years, if anything survives of B&N it will look wildly different from what we’re used to seeing.
Print distribution will likewise look radically different. Most print books will be sold online – and many will still be selling. I do print versions too – like you, I want all readers to have access to my work. But with most books being sold as ebooks, most books will be published as POD only. Ingrams and other distributors are already making the changes needed to move toward a near-future where print is dominated by print on demand instead of offset. By two years from now, virtually all print books will be sold online, much as CD sales of most albums have moved online.
The bottom line is that the raw data does not support 30% in two years; 30% was a while ago, for fiction – we’re already well past that.
Kevin, interesting that you say “about 20% and I say 18% when the actual number by the same organization you link to is 18.6%. (grin) And that number, as one insider told me a month ago, is from publishers (mostly university presses) that are leading in the digital aspects of publishing and are not afraid to report. The ones behind or with no or little focus on digital do not report, thus allowing that number to skew higher.
And yes, one-in-six owns a device. My 86 year old mother owns a device, would never read a book on it in a million years. I own an iPad and have yet to read a book on it, even though I use it all the time. So not sure how ownership means much now that the early adapter stage is past. More ownership is better, but has little value in predicting anything.
I never said B&N, as it floats now, was sustainable. I have my doubts as well. But just as in my lifetime there were no superstores for books, I’m guessing in my lifetime again there will be fewer superstores and smaller ones for books as well. Indie bookstores are growing and becoming smarter by the day. What goes around…
As for where print books are sold, you seem to make my point. Of course many print books will be sold online. And in physical stores. And by subscription, and so on… You seem to be making my point there, which again was simply, I don’t see digital (except in bulge months due to increased device sales like over Christmas) getting much past 30% of all books sold. (Remember the huge argument that used to go on about how all of publishing would crash when digital hit 25%? (grin))
So we shall see now. It’s a long, long ways from 18.6% in 2011 to 30%. That’s a fantastic amount of new readers and buyers when you look at the total numbers of all books sold. So we shall see.
Dean,
The gap I mentioned between selfpub and bookstores was a reference to how bookstores have traditionally looked at selfpub/vanity. Did you mean that this has changed? Since you say “act like a publisher” I’m guessing not.
I was suggesting a bookstore could survive by going out and finding good books that were not traditionally published and selling the paper version in their store. Again, I don’t know if booksellers still harbor a low opinion of anything that wasn’t engineered in NYC.
I do see your point about acting like a publisher. Thanks for the response.
Things certainly are changing! Thanks to you, Dean, (and Scott!), I just approved the first 15 minutes of the audiobook version for my first thriller novel. In a month or so I’ll have the book available as an e-book, a trade paperback, and an audiobook. It’s crazy! There are so many options and channels available for me as a writer these days, I would never have envisioned this back three ago when I started my pro writing journey.
allynh,
Whoa it took some re-reading to really get what you just said, heh. Yeah, I guess it’s a good idea. One still keeps all pen names connected, that is, a happy reader will find all the books, and at the same time one’s able to separate the different styles. Great idea. Thanks.
I did a quick search for J. D. Robb, tho, and didn’t find the “Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb” you mentioned, just plain “J. D. Robb”.
Kevin O. McLaughlin,
Yeah, you’re right. It’s just that being completely new in this writing business, I’m still trying to grasp the basics. Thanks.
You do read fast!
Good point, Dean. After all, they still sell record players at Target. I know where to go for a buggy whip, too, should I ever need one. New options don’t eliminate the old options (except when they perfectly improve over the old options). In fact, the place to look for the potential elimination of formats is in teenagers:
None of them have even heard of a cassette tape. Most of them own some CDs (not as many as the batch of teens a decade before them, but still enough to keep them available in stores). A niche of them have record players and hunt down LPs as a cool hobby. All of them have MP3/Ipods and do a ton of their music online or onphone.
So: Digital “retired” cassettes (which were very much in their natural twilight toward the end of the analog phase) but both enhanced CD quality while eventually shifting its market position from one of complete dominance to simply a major option.
It also became a marketing gateway for out of print albums and opened the door for record players to be sold in Target and Wal-Mart again!
Somehow I came up with 19 point something (my math might have been wrong) – but the point of mentioning that first bit was to demonstrate that books overall were nearly at the level you said fiction is at. Bowker’s 26% fiction number – which leaves out at least half of all ebook fiction sales – still means we’re looking at 41% or more of unit sales of fiction in ebook form as of October 2011, Dean.
Remember, fiction is moving much faster than other types of books.
Remember too, sales of ebooks went up 150% in 2010, and more than doubled from that in 2011. Will they slow in 2012? Surely. But even if they drop to a third the growth we saw in 2011, that will still put fiction sales above 50% overall for the 2012 year.
I think one should be careful about overestimating ebook growth, as it can lead one to bad decisions. But I think it’s also equally wrong to take the AAP and Bower’s numbers at face value, when the publishers they track have so clearly lost the majority of the fiction ebook market.
That said, I’m with you about publishers surviving past that 25% point. As your wife pointed out in her blog, most publishers saw *increased* profits in 2011 – and in their stockholder reports, several placed credit for those increased profits squarely on the *more profitable* nature of digital sales. Publishers are adapting; they’ll continue to adapt, offering better contracts out of the necessity of competing with Amazon imprint deals (eventually – but not until they are forced to by major writers leaving them).
Indie bookstores are interesting. There’s still some indie music shops around, too, selling CDs. Not a lot – but a number of them have survived the death of the chain music stores. Maybe by just playing the game really smart, being really good at business; maybe by being more a labor of love than an actual livelihood. Maybe a combination of both. But there’s a store in my town (30k people) that sells vinyl records. If there’s still room for that, then some indie bookstores are going to be around for quite a while.
If I was going to start an indie bookstore today though, it’d be an online one, focus on one or two genres, get major free content, author interviews, community, etc. built up around the site. Make it The Place on the internet to go for fans of that genre; and sell them books. Print and digital.
Sorry, Kevin, still not a clue where you are getting this numbers. The first link you posted in your last response took me to a page that was just month statistics, which had a link to a Publisher’s Weekly post that had the 18.6% number in it. I have never seen any link to any number about 41% of anything in October. And I honestly do not believe it.
And you completely missed my point on indie bookstores. It is a fact that they are growing in number and have been for the past four years, and I see no signs at all of that trend shifting this year. They are not going the way of a buggy whip store or an album store at all, the are increasing in number. That was my point. For the last four years!!
And by this time next year WMG Publishing will have over 200 titles in paper. I certainly wouldn’t do that if I believed like you do that every outlet for paper books was going to go under in the next year. And almost all bookstores were going to close. And honestly, WMG Publishing might just be starting a physical bookstore this coming year. It is in the plans.
“And every book, without exception, looked as good, if not better, than any cover or design layout I’ve seen out of traditional publishing lately.”
So much for the argument that indie writers cannot produce top quality books.
I’ve seen crappy books from self-published writers. I’ve seen crappy books from Simon & Schuster. I’m a nitpicky reader, so I notice stuff others don’t (I actually read copyright pages. Yes, I am strange.). I absolutely do not see any justification for legacy publishers to claim that their editing, copyediting, design or cover services are superior, as a class.
Of course there are plenty of writers who cannot design a book cover (guilty!). But that’s okay, we know a lot of up-and-coming illustrators who might like to design one for the portfolio. Of course there are writers who cannot spell to save their lives; they will have to take a little more time editing/revising, paying close attention to their spell-checkers. Of course there are writers who cannot tell a coherent story — and I have read LOTS of books published in New York by top notch writers who produce the occasional bit of incoherent dreck. There are no Maxwell Perkinses left in New York. Developmental editing? Give me a break.
I am absolutely not surprised that you found lots of good looking books handed to you, Dean. I’m only surprised that you’re surprised. Some of us HAVE been paying attention…
I don’t think you can compare books to CDs. It seems like it would make sense, but in the end, it doesn’t.
A CD is a storage device. I can’t buy a CD, open the case, and start listening to music. In order to play a CD, I have to have a CD player or use my computer or whatever. It was only natural for MP3s and other audio formats to take over, because I already need the device to play the product so switching over to a less clunky storage medium that can live on the device I use anyway was a pretty natural shift in my mind.
I can walk into a bookstore, buy a book, and *immediately* use my purchase. So while books are sort of storage devices for words, they are all in one devices. That’s why I am not sure the comparison is useful here. I don’t *need* an e-reader to read books. I *need* a CD player or computer to listen to a CD.
That’s why bookstores have a huge advantage over music stores. The bookstore sells a finished product with no additional anything needed.
And for what it’s worth, my 10 year old nieces know what a cassette tape is. And what a VCR is. I think it’s going to take another generation or two for that sort of recognition to fade. Most American teens would recognize a tape just fine, same as they know what a vinyl record is.
“Allan on 26 Mar 2012 at 7:43 am – I did a quick search for J. D. Robb, tho, and didn’t find the “Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb” you mentioned, just plain “J. D. Robb”.”
Try this link. HA!
Naked in Death (In Death, Book 1) [Mass Market Paperback] J. D. Robb
http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Death-Book-1/dp/0425148297
And also look at the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” list and you will see what I mean.
Look at the “Book Description” and “Editorial Reviews” section of the product page. As publisher, you have control of the information on your pages. You can also have fun ads in the back of the book listing the “authors” that your “house” publishes.
You are in control of what the public sees. You are the publishing house. I love this stuff. HA!
Let me try this again.
The first set of data was for 2012 as a whole, and December. But Bowker didn’t have access tothat data when they announced 26%; they were working from older data. Not really relevant to the discussion, however.
Bowker said in January that 26% of fiction was being sold as ebooks.
Bowker has no way of tracking the majority of fiction ebook sales; therefore, their number is dramatically off. The actual number is much higher.
How much higher is hard to determine, but the evidence strongly suggests that over half of ebook fiction sold is indie.
If they tracked half the sales in the data they used, then the actual percent is about 41%. Big margin for error there. But it’s probably that, plus or minus five percent or so.
I’m curious where you heard indie bookstores have been growing in numbers? That’s contrary to the ABA, which reported the first growth in indie bookstores in almost two decades in 2010. It was a big deal. Not doubting you, just wondering if you have a better source for that sort of data than the ABA? I certainly hope you’re right. But small stores in other media formats have been hammered by sales moving online. I don’t feel confident that indie bookstores will fare any better than indie music shops did.
The next two years will be interesting, anyway! And yes, I’ll be releasing print versions too.
But, you PAY Smashwords a percentage forever for them to upload that epub ebook to Apple for you when you can do it yourself.
You can only upload to Apple if you have a Mac. I don’t, and I know plenty of other writers who don’t either. So it makes sense for us Windows users to go this route to get our stuff into the iBooks store.
Just sayin’.
Allan, more copies of books under the same name sell more because readers if they like one of your works have more to choose from. And being clear on covers is always a good thing.
@Allan: I would also say – not as any sort of expert – that if you write sweet romances and erotica you MAY want to use 2 different names for that.
I remember reading on someone’s blog that the writer purposely had a separate name for her erotica books because she didn’t want those who read her sweet romances to pick up the erotica books and, um, be surprised/upset at the content.
Nice post again. I was wondering if you (Dean, or anyone else out there) had any information on the ebook market in places like India and Brasil (mainly based off a link on Publisher’s Marketplace). Though Brasil may be harder to crack, at least India has a large English speaking population. Where can one access these markets?
Nelson, India, due to government restrictions, is not yet open to outside authors for most cases. But it is opening slowly as India drops some restrictions in order to join into the world banking and commerce community. Still a little time away. Brazil is open, but we have no access, although I have heard that Amazon is trying to open a store there. But it is open and they have a very active publishing community and my wife sells translation to the publishers there all the time.
“Publishers are adapting; they’ll continue to adapt, offering better contracts out of the necessity of competing with Amazon imprint deals (eventually – but not until they are forced to by major writers leaving them).”
I read an interesting article about Stephen King a few months back, but don’t remember where; suffice it to say, according to the article his contract with his publisher is very different to that offered to a new writer and I doubt he has any incentive to go indie on a full-time basis. Maybe it would make sense for some stories that can’t as easily be sold that way; shorts, novellas, whatever.
I presume other established best-selling authors can negotiate similar deals.
I don’t think all bookstores will disappear, but I expect a good number of them to go under. And many of the remaining ones will start using more shelf space to sell things other than books.
I really don’t see a rosy future for bookstores. Every new reader who gets an e-reader and likes it is a reader spending less at bookstores. How many of those readers can bookstores lose and still survive? Where are the new readers going to come from? If anything, young people will more readily adopt the new technology.
Even very casual readers may switch to ebooks because they will own a tablet device.
Finally, there’s this: A lot of people don’t like having shelves of books. Heresy, I know, but not everyone thinks they are attractive.
For India, Amazon opened Jungles.com. My Createspace stuff is for sale there. Folks from India can buy Kindle devices there; but they’re redirected to the amazon.com site for Kindle purchases. So again, if your stuff is on Amazon, anyone in India can buy it if they have a Kindle. Not sure how strong Kindle sales have been there so far, but it’s nice to see my print work directly available!
I’ve heard the same rumors about an upcoming Amazon for Brazil, but don’t know what sort of timeline they’re planning.
Sorry, darned cell phone spellchecked that link for me. Thinks it knows spelling better than I do. Should have been junglee.com.
I found some interesting numbers that indicate ebook sales are already in the mid-thirties as a percentage of sales and fiction is at about 50%. This is from Mike Shatzkin’s blog:
“One Big Six executive told me that ebook sales in their shop had reached the mid-30s as a percentage of units sold. That broke down to about 50% of fiction units and 25% of non-fiction.
“Nonetheless, that same executive noted a real slowdown in the rate of ebook growth. This is to be expected as the base of sales grows, of course, but it slowed down faster than this house expected. They had seen a 120% increase in ebook units in 2010 and figured they’d see an 80% growth in 2011; it came in at 60%. In short, the rate of increase was cut in half.
“These numbers gave this particular executive reason to believe that print demand was begining to stabilize and that it was reasonable to assume that 50% print units might persist into the future, with commensurate new stability for brick-and-mortar stores. I have since been told that a leading executive at another of the Big Six houses shares the same expectation, or hope. Perhaps they all do.
“On the other hand…
“Another publisher, substantial but not Big Six, has seen much more explosive growth continuing in ebooks and, for that publisher, unit sales for fiction have already gone to well beyond 50% digital.”
http://www.idealog.com/blog/extending-the-life-of-bookstores-is-critical-but-devilishly-difficult
So the big six think paper sales may stabilize at 50% marketshare. Out of that 50% a good chunk of that is still going to be online sales. Then there are the big box stores that sell books — Wal-Mart, Sam’s, Target, etc. What’s left over is what bookstores will need to survive on. And that’s if paper sales hold steady at 50%.
I like bookstores and have spent thousands of dollars in them over the years, but I don’t go in them anymore since I prefer reading fiction on my Nook. If bookstores are losing their best customers like me, it’s going to be hard on them.
Mark, you talking about Mike Shatzkin? The same Mike Shatzkin that said electronic books would go to 80% of all books sold in twelve months? Yeah, I read Shatzkin’s blog and articles. Enough said.
would your workshop writers mind chiming on how they did their work? The cover designs, back copy stuff, and so on? Independently, or who did they work with? Good design staff need love and attention and publicity, too.
Ari, honstly, most of the writers I know do the design and layout themselves. It’s a skill that can be learned and that we will be teaching this fall. A few had commissioned art from a new artist at a reasonable fee, but then designed the book themselves. And what I find interesting is the vast number of different programs besides InDesign the writers are using to layout both the covers and interiors of the books. Cheaper programs that work all right. We wll be teaching all that this fall also. So stay tuned for the announcements of the fall workshop schedule in a week or so. I’ve got to give the writers who have been here before first shot at the workshops. (grin)
Yes, that’s him, though I didn’t know of that prediction of his. But what he said wasn’t him surmising as much as it was him passing along the actual sales percentages as told to him by execs from two of the big six.
If he is to be believed ebook sales already comprise a third of book sales and are still climbing, and for fiction they comprise about half the sales.
The guy’s father was an exec at Doubleday and he’s worked in the industry for a long time. He may have been wrong about a prediction but I wouldn’t discount him out of hand because of that.
As to bookstores, I will give my own anecdotal account. Here in the St. Louis area I know of only one new bookstore that’s opened in the last five years. In that time we’ve lost all of our Borders and this January one of the B&Ns closed. The net shelf space for paper books in St. Louis is probably down quite a bit, though it’s hard to factor in the big box stores that sell a limited number of titles.
On the positive side I talked to one of the indie bookstore owners and her sales were up about 10% last year. However, that’s the year that included the closing of all the area Borders.
Dear DWS, can anyone come to your workshops? Must they be already published? I left another comment for you here a couple days ago, but dont know, maybe the duendes ate it up? Thanks.
drcpe
archangel, we have a process we go through to let writers into these workshops. For many writers, these workshops are not a good fit. And our workshops are not for beginning writers. There are lots of workshops for starting out, from university programs to Clarion and such. We are like a graduate program here. Some writers may not be published that come here, but they have certain elements of drive and goals and such that we look for and can help. So to answer your question, no these workshops are not just open to anyone. And that is what makes these workshops work even better for the writers who do attend, like the twenty professional writers who are here this week. Thanks for the interest and question.
thank you DWS for telling us about the workshops, and I will relay this info and understand better now.
drcpe