Scribd shrinking its romance catalog

[booklover6]

But I don't read 20-30 SCRIBD books a month. I have a huge number of purchased books, and read library books, also.

[murg]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And therein lies the rub.
As many of us have been saying since the concept was first floated, there simply isn't enough money in subscription services to pay near-sales rates per checkout to everybody in the chain.

The only reason Netflix works is because the studios only license a (relative) few movies at a time and for a limited period and TV shows either serve to drive new viewers to the new season or are long paid off. And in both cases Hollywood accounting keeps the money in the studio.

Also the studios are actively supporting Netflix, and aren't charging 60% of retail price per viewing.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murg

Also the studios are actively supporting Netflix, and aren't charging 60% of retail price per viewing.

The way the studios fit online video into their windowing schedule, Netflix money is found money. At most is displaces a bit of DVD set sales but guaranteed license money upfront trumps potential retail sales down the road.

[Fbone]

Netflix also has $2.4 billion of long term debt and is facing stiff competition from Hulu and Amazon.

[49Kat]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

I suspect they discovered that there are readers who read more than one book per month. Too much more than that and they start losing money.

Well, thinking that subscribers are going to pay the $8.99 per month (more like about $11 Cdn) and then only read one book is just silly. A big part of the appeal of Scribd was based on access to an unlimited and large library. I subscribed because it was economical for me and I read a lot more than one a month. That volume from Scribd specifically went lower as the app's behaviour made the service annoying for me.

I'm sorry to see what's happening with Scribd.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by 49Kat

Well, thinking that subscribers are going to pay the $8.99 per month (more like about $11 Cdn) and then only read one book is just silly. A big part of the appeal of Scribd was based on access to an unlimited and large library. I subscribed because it was economical for me and I read a lot more than one a month. That volume from Scribd specifically went lower as the app's behaviour made the service annoying for me.

I'm sorry to see what's happening with Scribd.

Nobody likes to see a business start circling the drain but some businesses are built on quicksand or swampland; on unrealistic expectations or temporarily fortuitous conditions.

Right now there is an enormous panic ongoing on the Kindle Unlimited side over the KU2.0 payout reallocation from checkouts to pages read. It's getting vicious; PS3 vs XBOX360 vicious, but with real life stakes.

http://www.hughhowey.com/great-ku-flip-2015/

On the one hand people's financials are at stake so you can't help but feel for their loss...
...yet, at the same time you have to wonder how they failed to understand that paying out the same for reading a chunk of a short story as for reading a full novel simply could not last forever. Not if KU was to survive as a marketing adjunct to the entire Kindle ebook store.

And the really odd thing is people are panicking over one day's worth of incomplete data.

Publishing sure attracts strange people.

[ebusinesstutor]

I didn't realize they were paying near retail rates - that is a recipe for disaster.

If I read 30 books per month and only pay $9, they would be losing money.

I thought they were pooling the subscription money and sharing it with authors based on how often their books were read. I was thinking of it more book rentals than them having to pay near full purchase price.

Heavy readers will of course be attracted to services like ScribeD, but their business model seems flawed.

[49Kat]

Well, for me it comes down to money as well. I am very seldom willing to pay full price for a novel that I will probably only read once, even if it is a best seller. In this case, if I can borrow it from a library, I will. If I can pay a flat monthly rate and read as many books as I want that are available at that service (and this is the model that Scribd presented to its customers), I'll look there. I used to check Scribd first because there was no limit on how long I had access to the book in question, and no waiting for a title on hold.

I've never given any thought to the business aspect of it from Scribd's end. I thought the subscription idea was great, but maybe it won't work after all.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

I didn't realize they were paying near retail rates - that is a recipe for disaster.

If I read 30 books per month and only pay $9, they would be losing money.

I thought they were pooling the subscription money and sharing it with authors based on how often their books were read.

That is the widely decried (by Smashwords and others) Kindle unlimited approach.

Last I heard, the Smashwords titles that Scribd dropped earned something like 60% of cover price the moment the reader exceeded 10% read. Even if it was never finished. So a $5 romance cost Scribd $3 and everybody reading 4 of those books a month could sink them. The Scribd CEO has been previously quoted that subscribers averaged one book a month. It was either a misquote, an outright lie (that could lead to a legal drama), or total cluelessness (ditto).

I'm not sure but I think I heard that Oyster payouts were geared to percentages read (better) but topped out at 80% of cover (not so good).

Naturally, publishers clearly prefer Scribd and Oyster terms to Amazon terms. May they enjoy them while they last.

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=q3CLc0IGstk

[sassanik]

I did have their subscription and then alittle over a week ago I noticed their catalog was greatly reduced, I emailed them about it and this is the response I got.

I can certainly understand your confusion and frustration. We are currently working with some new search algorithms that might affect the results you see. I apologize that they're causing so much trouble. Much like other services such as Netflix or Pandora, our recommendations and search engine frequently go through algorithmic tweaks in order to bring you the best content based on your tastes. Unfortunately we're still working out the kinks.
You may also browse for content instead of searching for specific books/authors while we work on improving the new system. Who knows, you might find even more great books than those you already know about!
Please let me know if there's anything else we can do for you. Thanks again for reaching out and have a great day!

I asked them if they had lost some of my favorite authors and apparently currently they are not owning up to the fact that they massively cut down their total catalog!

Amy

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by sassanik

I did have their subscription and then alittle over a week ago I noticed their catalog was greatly reduced, I emailed them about it and this is the response I got.

Euphemism for "quit searching for books we've removed from our catalog and find something else to like instead"

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Euphemism for "quit searching for books we've removed from our catalog and find something else to like instead"

"...preferably one of the free books we don't pay anything for carrying..."

[Atunah]

Originally Posted by sassanik

I did have their subscription and then alittle over a week ago I noticed their catalog was greatly reduced, I emailed them about it and this is the response I got.

I can certainly understand your confusion and frustration. We are currently working with some new search algorithms that might affect the results you see. I apologize that they're causing so much trouble. Much like other services such as Netflix or Pandora, our recommendations and search engine frequently go through algorithmic tweaks in order to bring you the best content based on your tastes. Unfortunately we're still working out the kinks.
You may also browse for content instead of searching for specific books/authors while we work on improving the new system. Who knows, you might find even more great books than those you already know about!
Please let me know if there's anything else we can do for you. Thanks again for reaching out and have a great day!

I asked them if they had lost some of my favorite authors and apparently currently they are not owning up to the fact that they massively cut down their total catalog!

Amy

Wow. How stupid do they think we are? What, we are just some dumb romance readers, we have no brains so we wouldn't notice? I didn't notice much as I hadn't checked for new books. I have 168 books in my library and the collections. I just found out that they'll give those 30 days. And today I have some sort of grey banner on some of those 168 books. I counted and it was on 95 books. I checked some of those and they are totally gone from the catalog. Then I searched for some of the books that didn't have that banner, they are gone also. I think I found maybe a handful of the 168 books in my library that are not gone. Its just all gone poof.

It says there are 2000 historical romance there now. I know there were way more and I don't even believe that number. Browsing by popular its just all Julia Quinn and some Lisa Kleypas and a few other authors. I just don't see any of the books I usually have seen there.

When you pull up harlequin which put like 15,000 books into it, it barely pulls up anything.

I don't understand why they would treat us readers like this. No email, no notice. We are just not searching the right way? We are doing it wrong? To much for our widdle romance reading brains to handle to do search now?

Wow, I don't even have words.

[cfrizz]

Well if you can't find anything to read, then you won't be costing them any money the way you were when you were reading too much.

But since you are so desperate to read, you will happily settle for whatever they've chosen to keep in their romance catalog. But since there isn't much there you like, you only be reading 1 book a month maybe, which is how they envisioned it to be for THEM to make money.

And that is all they care about.

[sassanik]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Well if you can't find anything to read, then you won't be costing them any money the way you were when you were reading too much.

But since you are so desperate to read, you will happily settle for whatever they've chosen to keep in their romance catalog. But since there isn't much there you like, you only be reading 1 book a month maybe, which is how they envisioned it to be for THEM to make money.

And that is all they care about.

Yeah but they will be losing a good number of readers because of this I imagine, myself included.

I would rather have had them switched to a tiered system where as a heavy reader I would have just had to pay more, rather than have them remove such a large portion of their catalog.

Amy