The Current State of Publishing and Bookselling, Part 6
WHAT ABOUT EPUBLISHING?
Right now, few authors can make a living at epublishing. Even erotica, the growth industry of epublishing, no longer pays the bills as it once did.
The market has become glutted with books from other small publishers, and the major publishers have moved into the market in ebook and paper formats.
Venues for ebooks like Fictionwise are currently being glutted with backlist from major publishers so that unknown authors can sink in a sea of books quite fast. Romance is particularly prone to this.
The authors who are successful in epublishing are prolific, produce quality books of one kind so they build their sales through backlist and loyal readers, and they market constantly to sell that first book to new readers.
Of course, this is the primary survival means in paper book publishing for most authors right now.
~*~
Tomorrow, I'll suggest ways that readers and writers can fight to save the books they love.
Showing posts with label market trends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label market trends. Show all posts
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Part Five
The Current State of Publishing and Bookselling, Part 5
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
For authors, in the short term, all the news is bad unless you are already a "name" author. Midlist paper books are disappearing in bookstores and box stores.
According to my writing friends, a novel at Walmart accounted for almost thirty percent of all their books sold. Now, their books aren't available there. Their publishers are also losing out on those extra sales.
With bookstores also taking fewer titles in a publisher's line each month, some titles are available nowhere but a few independent booksellers and online.
If already established bestselling authors are the only ones sold at the major venues, where and how can an author build an audience big enough to join this exclusive club?
With most of the time and expense of promotion falling on the author's shoulders, how will the author manage financially? How will the author be able to produce the number of books needed yearly to grow their audience?
For publishers, if they can't find many places to sell that month's entire line of books, what can they do?
Do they drop most of their authors and only print "names?"
Where do they grow their talent to add to that list of names?
Do they start a farm system similar to major league baseball where new authors rise up through the ranks via ebooks?
Do they only recruit authors already building a name with small publishers?
I imagine we'll see a number of different "solutions" to these questions as authors and publishers try to survive this new hostile environment to selling books.
WHITHER READERS?
Any solution to this problem depends on what the readers will do.
Will readers be willing to only buy the name authors they see at Walmart and other places where they usually shop, or will they start depending on physical bookstores?
Will they be willing to buy online?
If they can't get paper books, will they move to ebooks?
If history is any indication, a majority will stop buying paper books. When science fiction disappeared from those dimestore racks years ago, the market plummeted, and the market has been rebuilding ever since.
On the other hand, when readers discovered erotica which was almost exclusively available as ebooks, the market expanded to the point that publishers like Ellora's Cave became multimillion dollar companies, and authors made money envied by their paper-published contemporaries.
Readers of erotica and romance are voracious readers, though, and smaller markets like science fiction haven't had the same online success even proportional to the number of readers of paper books.
Those of us who love to read and write can hope others will follow us online and into digital format, and I imagine some will, but will the numbers be enough to support the publishers and the authors?
No one can guess.
~*~
In Part Six of this series, I'll discuss the role of epublishing in publishing.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
For authors, in the short term, all the news is bad unless you are already a "name" author. Midlist paper books are disappearing in bookstores and box stores.
According to my writing friends, a novel at Walmart accounted for almost thirty percent of all their books sold. Now, their books aren't available there. Their publishers are also losing out on those extra sales.
With bookstores also taking fewer titles in a publisher's line each month, some titles are available nowhere but a few independent booksellers and online.
If already established bestselling authors are the only ones sold at the major venues, where and how can an author build an audience big enough to join this exclusive club?
With most of the time and expense of promotion falling on the author's shoulders, how will the author manage financially? How will the author be able to produce the number of books needed yearly to grow their audience?
For publishers, if they can't find many places to sell that month's entire line of books, what can they do?
Do they drop most of their authors and only print "names?"
Where do they grow their talent to add to that list of names?
Do they start a farm system similar to major league baseball where new authors rise up through the ranks via ebooks?
Do they only recruit authors already building a name with small publishers?
I imagine we'll see a number of different "solutions" to these questions as authors and publishers try to survive this new hostile environment to selling books.
WHITHER READERS?
Any solution to this problem depends on what the readers will do.
Will readers be willing to only buy the name authors they see at Walmart and other places where they usually shop, or will they start depending on physical bookstores?
Will they be willing to buy online?
If they can't get paper books, will they move to ebooks?
If history is any indication, a majority will stop buying paper books. When science fiction disappeared from those dimestore racks years ago, the market plummeted, and the market has been rebuilding ever since.
On the other hand, when readers discovered erotica which was almost exclusively available as ebooks, the market expanded to the point that publishers like Ellora's Cave became multimillion dollar companies, and authors made money envied by their paper-published contemporaries.
Readers of erotica and romance are voracious readers, though, and smaller markets like science fiction haven't had the same online success even proportional to the number of readers of paper books.
Those of us who love to read and write can hope others will follow us online and into digital format, and I imagine some will, but will the numbers be enough to support the publishers and the authors?
No one can guess.
~*~
In Part Six of this series, I'll discuss the role of epublishing in publishing.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The Current State of Publishing and Bookselling, Part 2
Continuing my overview of what has happened in recent months.
ONLINE MARKETS
Amazon remains the Godzilla of online book sales in both new and used books while Barnes & Noble online, etc., eat the crumbs.
Amazon gives readers an incredible selection of books not found in brick and mortar stores so they are the place to go for serious readers. A month's entire line of books by most publishers is available at Amazon, and their search functions as well as their Listmania and "if you like this book, you'll like that book" features, and reader blogs help readers find books and authors they won't find elsewhere.
Used book sites like Alibris are a major force in book buying as readers search for bargains, and Amazon displays the used book right beside the new book in their search results.
PRINT ON DEMAND BOOKS
Most major publishers do large print runs of their titles and store the books to sell through bookstores, etc.
A large print run requires a large expense up front in the printing followed by the cost of storing and moving inventory. For massmarket (standard-sized paperbacks), books not sold at the bookstore have their cover ripped off and returned while the book itself goes into the landfill. The publisher pays for the shipping in both directions.
Obviously, this is a serious waste of money and resources, but the bookstores and publishers seem addicted to this model.
In recent years, print on demand books (POD) are becoming an important part of the paper book process.
POD books are printed, one at a time, to order and shipped to the store or the buyer. Large publishers use POD for backlist, and small publishers and individuals who can't afford large print runs also use it.
Recently, a major publisher used POD to catch up on unexpectedly high demand of a nonfiction title.
Most of the major book distributors have their own POD company as does Amazon.
~*~
Tomorrow, I'll continue my overview by discussing ebooks and used books.
REMINDER: If you'd like to receive a copy of my blog via email, join my yahoogroup newsletter by sending a blank email to ByerlyWriting-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
ONLINE MARKETS
Amazon remains the Godzilla of online book sales in both new and used books while Barnes & Noble online, etc., eat the crumbs.
Amazon gives readers an incredible selection of books not found in brick and mortar stores so they are the place to go for serious readers. A month's entire line of books by most publishers is available at Amazon, and their search functions as well as their Listmania and "if you like this book, you'll like that book" features, and reader blogs help readers find books and authors they won't find elsewhere.
Used book sites like Alibris are a major force in book buying as readers search for bargains, and Amazon displays the used book right beside the new book in their search results.
PRINT ON DEMAND BOOKS
Most major publishers do large print runs of their titles and store the books to sell through bookstores, etc.
A large print run requires a large expense up front in the printing followed by the cost of storing and moving inventory. For massmarket (standard-sized paperbacks), books not sold at the bookstore have their cover ripped off and returned while the book itself goes into the landfill. The publisher pays for the shipping in both directions.
Obviously, this is a serious waste of money and resources, but the bookstores and publishers seem addicted to this model.
In recent years, print on demand books (POD) are becoming an important part of the paper book process.
POD books are printed, one at a time, to order and shipped to the store or the buyer. Large publishers use POD for backlist, and small publishers and individuals who can't afford large print runs also use it.
Recently, a major publisher used POD to catch up on unexpectedly high demand of a nonfiction title.
Most of the major book distributors have their own POD company as does Amazon.
~*~
Tomorrow, I'll continue my overview by discussing ebooks and used books.
REMINDER: If you'd like to receive a copy of my blog via email, join my yahoogroup newsletter by sending a blank email to ByerlyWriting-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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