Why aren't e-books included in best seller lists?

[avantman42]

Yesterday I listened to Open Book on Radio 4 (available on iPlayer, at least in the UK). There's a section about e-books and best seller lists (from around 09:30 to 16:30).

Apparently e-books aren't included in best seller lists, at least in the UK, because Amazon have the lion's share of the e-book market, and won't tell anyone how many Kindle books they sell. The program seems to suggest that if Amazon don't release sales figures, then there's no way around that. Presumably, though, the publishers know how many books they have sold, so why can't traditionally published e-books be included in the lists?

[kennyc]

Still an emerging technology and discrimination is rampant in some places. It will happen though.

[Rob Lister]

Originally Posted by avantman42

Yesterday I listened to Open Book on Radio 4 (available on iPlayer, at least in the UK). There's a section about e-books and best seller lists (from around 09:30 to 16:30).

Apparently e-books aren't included in best seller lists, at least in the UK, because Amazon have the lion's share of the e-book market, and won't tell anyone how many Kindle books they sell. The program seems to suggest that if Amazon don't release sales figures, then there's no way around that. Presumably, though, the publishers know how many books they have sold, so why can't traditionally published e-books be included in the lists?

I'm assuming that since all the books on the best-seller lists are available in e-book format (with a few possible exceptions) that you are talking about books that are released exclusively as e-books.

That kind of implies self publishing or very small publishing house with fairly minor sales.

Do you know of any exceptions that likely should be on the list?

[jbcohen]

Amazon might not tell the genera lpublic how many electronic books they sell however they do participate in studies from the American Book Publishers Association by putting in the number of electornic books that they sell within the spcified period of time. I would imagine that the company does the same thing in Great Brittan, any time the book sellers Association does a count of books sold in the United Kingdom they also include numbers for Amazon England as well.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

I'm assuming that since all the books on the best-seller lists are available in e-book format (with a few possible exceptions) that you are talking about books that are released exclusively as e-books.

That kind of implies self publishing or very small publishing house with fairly minor sales.

What Mariella Frostrup said during the introduction to the segment was:

"Sales of digital books aren't released, and therefore aren't included with print books on best-seller lists"

I assumed that she was talking about digital books in general, not just self-published books or those from very small publishers. The program talks about (and the Radio 4 page links to) the "Bestsellers in Kindle Store" page at Amazon. A very quick glance reveals at least one book published by Penguin and one by Macmillan, both of which are available in paper and as audio books.

They never specified whether they were talking specifically about self-published books, but I got the impression that they were talking about e-book sales in general.

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

Do you know of any exceptions that likely should be on the list?

Apparently Amazon recently announced that 50 Shades of Grey had sold a million books on Kindle. It's on the list linked to above, but I don't know if it's on other bestseller lists or not.

[Doitsu]

The New York Times website has bestseller lists for hardcover books, paperbacks and ebooks.

[Rob Lister]

I'm just not getting the distinction.

"Sales of digital books aren't released, and therefore aren't included with print books on best-seller lists"

So, When Vintage Books (Random House) releases their sales figures for 50 Shades of Grey--which tops every best seller list in the US and UK--they only release what sold in paper? I can't imagine they'd reduce their sales figures by a very likely 20% (probably far more) coming from e-sales. Why would they differentiate?

[avantman42]

I think I may not have phrased my original post very well

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

So, When Vintage Books (Random House) releases their sales figures for 50 Shades of Grey--which tops every best seller list in the US and UK--they only release what sold in paper? I can't imagine they'd reduce their sales figures by a very likely 20% (probably far more) coming from e-sales. Why would they differentiate?

That is pretty much my point - Amazon apparently won't give out sales figures, but the publishers must know how many they've sold, so I don't understand why, to quote Ms Frostrup, "Sales of digital books ... aren't included with print books on best-seller lists"

So, did Open Book get it wrong? Or did they actually mean that self-published books aren't included on best-seller lists? They never mentioned self-published books, so I'd assumed they were talking about e-books in general.

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by Rob Lister

I'm just not getting the distinction.



So, When Vintage Books (Random House) releases their sales figures for 50 Shades of Grey--which tops every best seller list in the US and UK--they only release what sold in paper? I can't imagine they'd reduce their sales figures by a very likely 20% (probably far more) coming from e-sales. Why would they differentiate?

Bestseller lists come from booksellers (retail sales) not publishers (wholesale sales). I didn't realize that Amazon doesn't release sales information. I wonder where the New York Times gets data for ebook sales, then? Anyway, you can see Amazon's own bestseller lists on their site. Maybe the New York Times is scraping the data that way?

eP

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

Bestseller lists come from booksellers (retail sales) not publishers (wholesale sales). I didn't realize that Amazon doesn't release sales information. I wonder where the New York Times gets data for ebook sales, then? Anyway, you can see Amazon's own bestseller lists on their site. Maybe the New York Times is scraping the data that way?

eP

I would assume that the NY Times just gets the info from the publishers. This isn't how it works with paper books, for various reasons, but I think it's the only plausible way for this to work without getting info directly from Amazon, B&N, etc.

[andreabc]

This article talks about the NYT e-book bestsellers lists and mentions

The lists will be compiled from weekly data from publishers, chain bookstores, independent booksellers and online retailers, among other sources.

RoyaltyShare, a San Diego-based company that tracks data and aggregates sales information for publishers, will work with The Times, provide data and offer an additional source of independent corroboration.

The ebook fiction lists usually has at least a few self-publishers, so it's not all publisher info.

[charlesatan]

There's several problems here.

First off, so-called "Best-Seller lists" aren't empirical gauges of that. For example, the NY Times Best-Seller list was cited, but they honestly do some editorializing (i.e. not purely based on sales and make judgment calls on whether a book should be on the list or not; for example http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/20...imes-list.html). That's why I tend to favor USA Today for best-sellers based on actual sales (for print) (their algorithm is on their site).

Second, at least in print publishing (I'll get back to this point with eBooks), publishers don't have live stats on how well their book is selling (if they did, one of the problems of book returns wouldn't be as difficult as it is). Now eBook publishing gives more immediate reports than print... but at the end of the day, that also depends on the retailer. Amazon and iTunes provides relatively quick stats (under 24 hours). Other retailers, not as immediate.

Third, for print books, while it is inaccurate (sample size, demographic, etc.; something all best-seller lists face, including my first point), Bookscan provides sales for print books and is often used by publishers. Why is Bookscan important? Because it's a third-party source. It's not the retailer. It's not the publisher. Their agenda is to provide the best data, not their own interests. So who is the third-party data gatherer for eBooks (and this becomes more difficult when one of the largest retailers refuses to disclose their data).

So yes, publishers can give third-party the data given to them by Amazon. And then it'll take them more time to gather the data given to them from other retailers. But also, on some level, you have to suspect data being given to you by publishers. Sometimes they've fudged the math to favor them or to hype up a product.

In the case of the NY Times eBook best-seller list, here's some data on how they gather their data: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/hom...dy_to.html.csp

Excluding certain books may be a good idea if you're compiling a list for their general readership. Simply put, you don't want one segment of the market to dominate the list if they are particularly devout in their reading.

Likewise, you don't want people to know your sources otherwise it would be possible for people to create an artificial run on those booksellers to boost the profile of a book.

The important thing is to understand why they do these things, and figure out whether the list meets your needs because of that. If it doesn't meet your needs, use another list.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by charlesatan

So yes, publishers can give third-party the data given to them by Amazon. And then it'll take them more time to gather the data given to them from other retailers. But also, on some level, you have to suspect data being given to you by publishers. Sometimes they've fudged the math to favor them or to hype up a product.

I don't know if this is the actual reason e-books aren't included, but this is the first post I've seen that gives a reasonable explanation as to why e-books wouldn't be included.

[charlesatan]

Originally Posted by avantman42

I don't know if this is the actual reason e-books aren't included, but this is the first post I've seen that gives a reasonable explanation as to why e-books wouldn't be included.

Well, what I mentioned isn't the main reason why eBooks aren't included. eBooks aren't included because they're a relatively new industry and not as organized (by organized, I mean they're not under a few, huge publishers but tens of thousands of independent, traditional, and self-publishers) or explored fully.

But if one were to create an eBook best-seller list, these would be some of the hurdles that need to be overcome. (Or else qualified or limited in a certain way; i.e. a best-seller list on Amazon, a best-seller list on Barnes & Noble, etc.)

For example, Amazon, for all its mysteries, does a somewhat competent job of posting the best-sellers in their store (to the point that publishers and authors are wondering what their algorithm and metric is, and at one point it's theorized that it's not just based on sales over time--a reasonable metric--but price can be a factor too [i.e. a $9.99 book will rank higher than a $0.99 book assuming both sell the same amount]).

And as much as Amazon is a dominant market, not every eBook is sold there. (In a different forum, the members were even surprised and skeptical that a nonfiction eBook was selling for $39.99, the author made $30,000 in two months, and the book wasn't on Amazon.)