Quote:
Originally Posted by Pajamaman
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I don't know how AE gets there data, but some thoughts...
1) Couldn't it be something as simple as a simple dilution of overall available titles causing it to be harder to accurately measure the market? If you had X number of indies and now there are 25, 50, 100% more which is possibly causing it to be harder to read the market. If author A's sales dropped by 1,000 books in that quarter did those sales simply get split by authors B, C, D, E, F & G who collectively make up that number, but individually don't get measured since they're almost completely off the radar?
2) Big 5 pubs are getting more aggressive with their reduced price sale titles and catching some of the same market, price point wise.
3) Smaller/Medium pubs like Sourcebooks & Open Road are also having more sales (including lots of free & $.99 titles) and may be capturing some of the indies market.
4) Kindle Unlimited (& to a smaller extent Scribd). Why buy all of theses indie books when I can get tons of them in an All You Can Eat setting by paying a small monthly free when compared to buying them?
5) More crap being put out means more for folks to wade through which may send some of them back to more trad pubs where they feel there is a better shot to get something that's at least had an editing pass or two.
6) Indie & Trad pub pricing has gotten closer. Indie books that were $2.99-$3.99 are now often $4.99-$5.99. A lot of trad pub mass market stuff is in the $5.99-$7.99 range, but some pubs have been going as low as $1.99 each for every title in some series through their digital first imprints and even as low as $4.99 for a regular price on the eBook version of more traditionally published titles that get both a print and digital release. The digital first imprints especially are positioned to be in a similar market space to indies.
Personally I've also noticed a lot of indies I personally buy have had the author slow down on how quickly titles are released. Some were putting out half a dozen, or more, books are year and have cut way back finding that workload unsustainable in the long term if they want to keep the quality up.