Author Earnings looks at Nook... and Hachette...

[fjtorres]

Well, now, this one is unexpected...

http://authorearnings.com/july-2014-barnes-noble/

Oh, not the indie vs tradpub breakdowns--those mirror Kindle, as generally expected:

More striking, though, is the market share gained by indie authors. If you scrolled through Nook’s genre bestseller lists, and tallied each book and how it was published, you would find that over half are now self-published.

While Nook’s e-book market share is much smaller than Amazon’s overall, it is just as indie-friendly as the Kindle store. And the daily royalty share going to indies is nearly twice as large as the share going to Penguin Random House authors. In fact, indies seem to be on their way to overtaking the Big 5 combined, just as they have on Amazon.

But, comparing their February Nook look to the new July numbers...

One thing of note with the last three sets of charts is that Hachette titles have suffered on the Nook store over the past five months. It’s possible the ongoing negotiations between Amazon and Hachette are impacting their sales on other digital retail outlets.

Hachette has... uhmm... declined... from 9% of Nook total sales to 7%...
About 20%…

Good thing there is a massive exodus of buyers from Amazon.

[crossi]

Thanks. Always interesting data. Keep up the good work.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crossi

Thanks. Always interesting data. Keep up the good work.

Not me.
Kudos go to Howey and Data guy/gal.

[Barcey]

Interesting. On the Hachette drop I wonder if it was impact from the removal of the preorder button and Amazon not discounting causing some books not making the best seller list. If you miss that you get less visibility across retailers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Interesting. On the Hachette drop I wonder if it was impact from the removal of the preorder button and Amazon not discounting causing some books not making the best seller list. If you miss that you get less visibility across retailers.

That's one possibility.

I've also heard it suggested that with Hachette spending so much time and effort on their anti-amazon campaign they have no time left to promote their books. After all, there’s only so many staff hours in the day and spending them Amazon-bashing is bound to have an impact. The Hachette-friendly media is devoting their time and reporting to the fight, instead of the books.

Other possibilities:
- maybe the new release books themselves are underwhelming, so that even a big exodus from Amazon isn’t enough to prop up sales.

- maybe the whole anti-Amazon campaign has hurt Hachette’s image market-wide by reminding readers of their anti-competitive and anti-consumer habits. This might even impact the specific authors behind the media campaign… (awww!! How sad for the millionaires!)

- maybe the fact that Hachette books at Nook appear to be Agency priced across the board has them at a competitive disadvantage compared to indies and the other tradpubs.

Maybe all five effects combined?

Or maybe they were lucky to make it to 9% in Feb and 7% is their real market clout, even with a boost from Amazon "defectors".

Lots of possibilities, only one certainty: any losses at Amazon aren't being replaced at Nook.

That, and indies are about as big at Nook as at Amazon.

[Fbone]

This may also convince some indies that B&N/Nook shouldn't be excluded in their sales distribution.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by Fbone

This may also convince some indies that B&N/Nook shouldn't be excluded in their sales distribution.

Does it cost anything to also list books with B&N/Nook for indies? If not, the time and effort should be worth it for extra sales.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Does it cost anything to also list books with B&N/Nook for indies? If not, the time and effort should be worth it for extra sales.

Just time is all I can think of. You'd think it should be worth the extra effort, Kobo too, but at least for some of the authors I've talked to who have tried both going through all stores and doing KDP exclusively with the Kindle Owners Lending Library and they've found, in the past at least, that library payments from Amazon made them more $$$ than having the book non-exclusive and at the other stores. Something I'm sure is highly author and genre dependent.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Just time is all I can think of. You'd think it should be worth the extra effort, Kobo too, but at least for some of the authors I've talked to who have tried both going through all stores and doing KDP exclusively with the Kindle Owners Lending Library and they've found, in the past at least, that library payments from Amazon made them more $$$ than having the book non-exclusive and at the other stores. Something I'm sure is highly author and genre dependent.

That makes sense if going exclusive or all stores are the only options. And maybe that is the only two options, realistically.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Does it cost anything to also list books with B&N/Nook for indies? If not, the time and effort should be worth it for extra sales.

The thing is, Kindle moves 4-5 times as many ebooks as Nook or Apple, 8-10 times as many as Kobo.

There have also been reports that Nook rigs their rankings against indies in certain genres, listing them about 100 slots lower than their sales would merit. They may or not still be doing it but the rumors are out there. There are also abundant reports of ebookstore failings for both Nook and Kobo that hinder discoverability.

While most authors would prefer to be multi-platform on principle, many find that their sales skew so strongly towards Kindle that they might as well go Select and make up the difference in revenue from the Prime library and (presumably) Kindle unlimited. Others do report significant income from other channels and that occasionally some titles actually do better elsewhere in a given month but it seems to be random.

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

That makes sense if going exclusive or all stores are the only options. And maybe that is the only two options, realistically.

Although every author is different, indications are that is quite possible to prosper as an indie publisher on Kindle alone (and not uncommon) but impossible to do it without kindle.

[DBDigital]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Does it cost anything to also list books with B&N/Nook for indies? If not, the time and effort should be worth it for extra sales.

Nope it is free like all the other stores. They take their cut when you sell, but not before. And listing is always free.

Also interesting tid bit with regard to Nook: they are SLOW at getting books up from other publishers. For example have a book from a publisher/distributor and the nook store may take a month to get the listing up fully. First you have the basic listing, then they get the description in, and finally the cover. Why in the world they are doing this way I can't imagine. BUT if you do it though Nook Press (their own publishing system) directly, it 100% live in 24 hours or less.

Doesn't seem to matter if it is a distributor or a mid sized publisher, they all get treated the same (although with a mid sized publisher nothing appears for a month or more, not even the description). I don't know if this happens with the big 5 or not, I haven't seen it yet so I suspect not.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The thing is, Kindle moves 4-5 times as many ebooks as Nook or Apple, 8-10 times as many as Kobo.

There have also been reports that Nook rigs their rankings against indies in certain genres, listing them about 100 slots lower than their sales would merit. They may or not still be doing it but the rumors are out there. There are also abundant reports of ebookstore failings for both Nook and Kobo that hinder discoverability.

While most authors would prefer to be multi-platform on principle, many find that their sales skew so strongly towards Kindle that they might as well go Select and make.


Although every author is different, indications are that is quite possible to prosper as an indie publisher on Kindle alone (and not uncommon) but impossible to do it without kindle.

I think it was more possible to prosper on Kindle alone in the past. I don't think Amazon is boosting visibility for indies as much as they did in the past.

And while your stats are probably true for many writers, they are not true for all. I sell extremely well on Kobo. Is that because I've been working multi-platform longer? Is it because I hang out on forums where there are kobo readers? I've always sold as well at Kobo as B&N -- they were secondary markets compared to Amazon until about a year ago. B&N sales are inconsistent. Some months are great and I think the books are finally taking off--followed by a month of 3 sales overall and I wonder if the books are even listed...

Also someone was asking early in the thread about listing the books on B&N versus Amazon. B&N doesn't pay quite as well in commissions, but the load process is about the same. Kobo pays the same as Amazon, has a very easy load process (it does require an epub check) and allows pre-orders. Not even Amazon lets indies list for pre-order yet. That's in the works, but not working yet.

I find the customer support at all three retailers to be quite good.