02-15-2014, 03:49 PM | #61 |
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But where did the data come from? Mr Howey's anonymous source? If that's the case, its validity can't be checked (can it? I'm happy to corrected if I'm wrong about that).
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02-15-2014, 03:57 PM | #62 | |
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It came from Amazon's public web site that has been stated. The anonymous part is we do not know who wrote the software that crawled the website. The data source is known, the final data is known, the means used to collect the data is known. We just do not know the name of the coder. I see no issue here with that. It is verifiable, and repeatable by anyone wanting to put the time in. |
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02-15-2014, 04:22 PM | #63 |
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I think it would be easier to hack into the NYT or USA Today computers to get Amazon's data.
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02-15-2014, 04:24 PM | #64 |
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02-15-2014, 07:28 PM | #65 | |
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Someone can try to repeat what Howey describes, but it won't be exactly replicated, if only because Amazon is often tweaking how it presents data to its customers. I mentioned the anonymous source thing tongue in cheek because, while it's possibly true, it doesn't feel that way. Don't authors, as a class, like to draw a bit of attention to themselves? Few would want to do so much work and then pass on all credit to someone else, while completely losing control of how the data is used. In a real collaboration, there are multiple credited authors. I'm not saying the article is bunk. But I group it closer to punditry than science. Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 02-15-2014 at 07:32 PM. |
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02-16-2014, 12:30 AM | #66 |
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02-16-2014, 11:47 AM | #67 | ||
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The economics of an author republishing his or her backlist electronically are very different from those of a commercial publisher deciding whether to devote one of their limited number of publishing slots to the same books. Commercial publishers often let books revert because even though they might sell a steady trickle if left in print (which may require a new print run on the publisher's part), there's a brand new book in competition for that slot which the publisher expects will sell better. As for the bolded part, commercial publishers are still better at getting author's names out there than the majority of self-publishers. The model of launching a career with a commercial publisher and then releasing books yourself after your name's out and the rights have reverted still works just fine for a number of authors. Selling a thousand copies a year of each of 20 backlist books with very little upfront cost makes a lot of sense for a single author, doing new print runs for that entire list and convincing bookstores to stock them may not make sense for a commercial publisher. Sure, the commercial publisher may go electronic only, but if they're working from an older contract they may need to keep physical copies in print to retain the rights. Different business models have different profit thresholds, so a model that's viable for a self-published author may not be viable for a commercial publisher, and vice versa. |
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02-16-2014, 01:36 PM | #68 |
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Here's an interesting article about the statistics of Howey's report, and why this person doesn't think it paints an accurate picture of what's really going on in the marketplace.
http://dearauthor.com/ebooks/how-not...th-statistics/ |
02-16-2014, 01:57 PM | #69 | |
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The real untold story is the army of indies and trad pubs that are not in the top 10%. How do they compare? Wall Street Journal and others have all reported that indies make up 1/3rd of the market which is strong support for what Hugh posted... but I would love to know what that looks like lower in the ranks. I know what *MY* numbers are, and I am amazed by people that say "indie books dont sell" or "a book sells 100-200 copies in a life time and that is it" because that is not my experience, nor the experience of others who I have access to. The past 3-5 years have shaken up the market tremendously and we lack any real data to predict soundly the next 5. There just is not enough history yet. What is the lifespan of an ebook? 1 year? 10? 100? Do tactics like serialized novels, loss leaders, permafree, and play well in the long term? Do fast hitting spikes to the top ten on Amazon matter in 5, 10 or 15 years? Do we have any way to guess that? What is the long term impact of KDP Select or Sony's collapse? If B&N folds, or survives, what impact will that have? What will be the long term impact to sites like Oyster, Nokboo, and Scribd which give unlimited books for a flat price? I think Hugh's report is good for what it claims to be - a snapshot of a specific market at a specific point in time. The inferences drawn from may go too far, or not far enough, depending on your personal bias, but what it does show is that some Self-pubs are killing it out there, and proving that self-pub is a very viable way to go. |
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02-16-2014, 02:36 PM | #70 | |
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The problem is that there are an awful lot of people who are using this study as the basis for conclusions the data just doesn't support.
Howey himself is guilty of this: Quote:
All it suggests is that a genre novel can reach roughly equivalent sales ranks on Amazon whether it is self-published or commercially published. Self-published authors can achieve the same level of Amazon success on a given day as commercially published ones, at least when it comes to eBooks. It doesn't factor in advances, nor print sales, so you can't make an accurate comparison between the two based on the data in this report. |
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02-16-2014, 02:57 PM | #71 | |
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02-16-2014, 06:51 PM | #72 | |
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And while the numbers do indicate that for a given volume of Kindle sales, in dollars, a self-publishing author will generate more revenue for themselves than a commercially published author, they say nothing about the relative ease, or difficulty, of generating that volume of sales with a self-published as opposed to a commercially-published book. It's just another example of people drawing a conclusion the numbers don't support, which is why I don't like this study. |
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02-16-2014, 07:46 PM | #73 | ||
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As for new information, what about this: Quote:
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02-16-2014, 08:39 PM | #74 | |
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It would be like studying New York City in order to understand the USA as a whole and then applying what you learned in NYC to the entire country. It is useful for exactly what it is doing, raising awareness that self-pub authors can and do compete with the big publishers, something many experts have been trying to deny. That was Hugh's objective and in that he has succeeded. All across the industry people are talking about the data. I suspect we will see competing surveys and reports with time. I have not pulled down the raw data myself yet, and probably will not. I need to focus focus on finishing my WIP and not be to distracted by things like this. Failing on that account so far.... |
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02-16-2014, 10:33 PM | #75 | |
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The only real questions left have to do with how reasonable are these expectations for a self-published author, and those questions are a lot more difficult to answer. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think this study does answer those questions (Howey is apparently among them), even though it doesn't even come close to addressing them. However, by saying that the data suggests self-publishing is a better choice for "even stellar manuscripts," he's saying that the expectations of success are better with self-publishing than commercial publishing even though the numbers say nothing of the sort. They talk about how much money an author can make, but not about how likely they are to make it, but without that latter part there's no way to tell which choice is better. |
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