WSJ: E-Book Sales Fall After New Amazon Contracts

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I just can't understand how they were so stupid.

You mean the newspaper publishers?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declin...ad_revenue.svg

Admittedly, I have no IQ test results available for newspaper executives vs. book publishing executives. Maybe the book publishers's far superior results during the digital transition is just dumb luck:

http://www.statista.com/statistics/1...ks-since-2005/

I realize you haven't named the people you think are stupid, and I have to take that into account. But, personally, I have a negative reaction to people judging groups of individuals on the basis of intelligence. This is the case even when the people being judged are rich (and compared to executives in other industries, book publishing bosses aren't, AFAIK, as rich).

I also am NOT claiming you are the type of person who judges strangers as stupid. What happens in forums like this is that negativism gets whipped up by people egging each other on until they write things they would never say in real life. (Of course I don't know. Maybe you call lots of people stupid in real life. But I'm thinking not )

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I didn't use their micropay much, but I loved their 50 - 60% off coupons.

I too like getting a bargain.

Such promotions illustrate why when Barnes & Noble purchased Fictionwise in March 2009 -- before agency -- it payed what was a tiny price for a tech company, $15.7 million. Fictionwise could not have been making money, agency or no agency. Tech companies can survive that for a couple years, but will eventually go under -- regardless of the IQ of their suppliers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by darryl

Rubbish. I wonder if Joe Konrath is going to expose this old chestnut as a Zombie Meme. Perhaps it is true of you, and no doubt you are not entirely alone. But for most people the opposite is true. "Best Sellers" are replaceable by other tradpub books. They are replaceable by Indie Books. And they are replaceable by and competing with other forms of entertainment. Even more so among your hypothetical two books per year people, many of whom would probably much rather see the movie in any event.

it is also irrelevant to declining ebook sales: bandwagon buyers primarily buy pbooks at Costco.

Or Amazon. That is the BPHs last appeal to dreamers: that they can sell enough added pbooks to justify life of copyright contracts.

[darryl]

Steve. Please stop playing games. Purple Lady needs no defence from me, but to me:

1. It is perfectly obvious from Purple Lady's post that she was referring to "Big Publishers".

2. It is also perfectly obvious that when she says "I just can't understand how they were so stupid" she is not referring literally to the intelligence of anyone but to the stupidity of their treatment of Fictionwise. Even smart people make bad decisions. Or do you think that the way Fictionwise was treated by the Big Publishers under Agency was a good thing?

[Cinisajoy]

Please note they said and I quote ebook revenue is down, not ebook sales.
Well yes if one has a tremendous sale on a book they know will be a bestseller then yes they probably got more sales than normal but not enough sales to offset the difference in pricing.
So yes your net will go down.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Please note they said and I quote ebook revenue is down, not ebook sales.
Well yes if one has a tremendous sale on a book they know will be a bestseller then yes they probably got more sales than normal but not enough sales to offset the difference in pricing.
So yes your net will go down.

They raised the price per unit to a level that made measurably more profit per unit.
That was their goal, after all.

There really isn't a way to have less profits without selling fewer books.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Phogg

They raised the price per unit to a level that made measurably more profit per unit.
That was their goal, after all.

There really isn't a way to have less profits without selling fewer books.

I know of one book they put on sale for 99 cents to make sure it went to #1.
So they lowered the price.
I never said they didn't make money just not near what they could have.
The price is now $10 so did they sell 10 times as many to make the same money?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by darryl

Steve. Please stop playing games. Purple Lady needs no defence from me, but to me:

1. It is perfectly obvious from Purple Lady's post that she was referring to "Big Publishers".

2. It is also perfectly obvious that when she says "I just can't understand how they were so stupid" she is not referring literally to the intelligence of anyone but to the stupidity of their treatment of Fictionwise. Even smart people make bad decisions. Or do you think that the way Fictionwise was treated by the Big Publishers under Agency was a good thing?

Thank you. I won't even bother replying to his post.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

"Best Sellers" to most people are replaceable by whatever-the-heck Best Sellers are in the airport racks and the Walmart displays etc.
The old whatever-the-heck "Best Sellers" did the same thing in their time.

And as people become more price conscious and increasingly adopt the ereader app that is probably already on their phone, they start looking at the Amazon.com front pages to find the latest "Best Sellers".


They aren't buying bestsellers because they want those books, they are buying them because it's there and they don't care about investigating further...

People buy the big best sellers to be part of a large social event. They want to have read that book that everybody else has read, and feel part of the moment. It's a herd instinct. If there was no hot book of the moment, they wouldn't go and buy some other book. They don't need some other book, just the herd experience. That's what drives the masses who only buy one book every year or two.

[eschwartz]

Isn't that more or less what I just said?

I am confident people will find something to herd after even without the BWMs.

[crossi]

Ebook profits are down at the BPH. I would like to see the ebook profits during the same period of the non-BPHs. I suspect you would see a coresponding rise. Hardcore readers, after all, are less likely to stop reading than hardcore addicts are likely to stop using drugs.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by darryl

I agree. In fact, I think things are even worse. To me KU is the only subscription service with a sustainable business model. As I understand the position, and please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, the others subscription services are essentially paying the Big 5 an equivalent amount to a sale for every borrow. Which of course is simply not sustainable.

I think you will find that a sustainable business model for the subscription service is not necessarily a sustainable business model for the publisher. If someone came to you and said "Work for me but I can only afford £1 per hour or I will go out of business" I suspect they would not get a happy response.

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

We have a product that is not an essential, like beer or tobacco for example, so a rising price impacts demand.

When did beer become non-essential
Of course if we are talking basic economics, then a falling demand for an item with set-up costs will require a higher price to stay profitable.
Swings, Roundabouts.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

I am confident people will find something to herd after even without the BWMs.

Cows, Goats, Sheep, sure, but the purpose of buggy whip's was to ride in them not herd them up. Ok, yes I know it was a typo but couldn't resist

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I think you will find that a sustainable business model for the subscription service is not necessarily a sustainable business model for the publisher. If someone came to you and said "Work for me but I can only afford £1 per hour or I will go out of business" I suspect they would not get a happy response.

KU is still a sustainable business model, on the grounds that the publishers with the unhappy response aren't the only source of books.
Competition.

#1 goal of the service should be: figure out a way to not go bankrupt as a matter of course.
#2 goal: find people willing to work with your *sustainable* business model.

Cows, Goats, Sheep, sure, but the purpose of buggy whip's was to ride in them not herd them up. Ok, yes I know it was a typo but couldn't resist

If I had meant to say BPH, I wouldn't have said BWM. That isn't a typo.

BWM -- as in, makers of legacy products that serve little purpose now the world has moved on, and aren't adapting to the change.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I know of one book they put on sale for 99 cents to make sure it went to #1.
So they lowered the price.
I never said they didn't make money just not near what they could have.
The price is now $10 so did they sell 10 times as many to make the same money?

Running the discount to get it to #1 can exponentially increase the sales that happen after the discount period is over. That's how the Amazon game is played - boost short-term sales at lower prices to increase exposure, then reap the benefits while the book stays at or near the top of the list after returning to full price.

Self-pubs in Kindle Select have been doing it since inception, but it only works if a) the book is at least decent, and b) it is in a popular genre. Trad pubs have a higher chance overall of hitting both of those points because their catalog tends to be more consistent. It's done not only to boost a particular book, but also authors with new books releasing. Romance publishers have been doing this for a few years now - price-dropping a backlist selection for an author to increase exposure for a new release.

This isn't a new thing, and if it wasn't working (at least enough of the time), they wouldn't keep doing it.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

Running the discount to get it to #1 can exponentially increase the sales that happen after the discount period is over. That's how the Amazon game is played - boost short-term sales at lower prices to increase exposure, then reap the benefits while the book stays at or near the top of the list after returning to full price.

Self-pubs in Kindle Select have been doing it since inception, but it only works if a) the book is at least decent, and b) it is in a popular genre. Trad pubs have a higher chance overall of hitting both of those points because their catalog tends to be more consistent. It's done not only to boost a particular book, but also authors with new books releasing. Romance publishers have been doing this for a few years now - price-dropping a backlist selection for an author to increase exposure for a new release.

This isn't a new thing, and if it wasn't working (at least enough of the time), they wouldn't keep doing it.

I never said it didn't work.
What I said was if you drop the price of a book, your net will go down. So yes, that would make the revenue fall. Plain and simple.
I never said it wasn't a good idea.
But if one wants to say their revenue is dropping then they did it to themselves. Especially if all the BPH did that.
It is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But if you have a 90% off sale on whatever, you will more than likely have a 50% drop in income on that particular whatever It should be expected.

Also one other thing on the topic of book selling.

Let's say someone offered to give you 65% on every 99 cent item they sold or 30% of every 2.99 item they sell. Where will you make more money?
One little detail, they sell twice as many at 99 cents.
So which has more profit?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Also one other thing on the topic of book selling.

Let's say someone offered to give you 65% on every 99 cent item they sold or 30% of every 2.99 item they sell. Where will you make more money?
One little detail, they sell twice as many at 99 cents.
So which has more profit?

65% vs 30% is an odd and ridiculous split.

Overall there will be less money, but the vendor is giving you a disproportionate amount of the pie in scenario #1.