Scribd shrinking its romance catalog

[fjtorres]

From Bob Mayer:
https://writeitforward.wordpress.com...omance-titles/

If you are receiving this email, then you are a Draft2Digital author who has published books in the romance genre to Scribd. This means that some or all of your romance novels are likely going to be delisted from their service today. (Books that are priced at free will not be removed.)

While a large number of romance novels will be removed from Scribd, it isn’t all of them. We aren’t privy to the exact guidelines Scribd is using to decide which romance novels will remain, and it’s our understanding that they remain in flux at Scribd.

And the Digital Reader Blog:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...too-damn-much/

Mark Coker has announced over on the Smashwords blog that Scribd is thinning out its catalog. More specifically, Scribd is now pulling titles from what is probably its most read genre: romance.

Effective immediately, I estimate 80-90 percent Smashwords romance and erotica titles will be dropped by Scribd, including nearly all of our most popular romance titles. Books priced at free are safe and will remain in their catalog.

Based on what I've been able to glean, the lower the price and the higher the word count, the better the odds the book will remain. Few books priced $3.99 and above will remain. Scribd is not publicly revealing the formulas for what stays and what goes, probably because much of this is still in flux. They're cutting all publishers and distributors with the same blunt knife.

It's ugly. The problem for Scribd is that romance readers are heavy readers, and Scribd pays publishers retailer-level margins for the books.

More at the sources.

And so it begins...

[Phogg]

Not feeling the love here.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Not feeling the love here.

No and you won't.


But SF&F is next.

[49Kat]

Well...I actually lost access to two books while I was reading them. I use Scribd on my iPads and the app freezes relentlessly. I've given up talking to tech support. I haven't been using the app for a while now...I have to be pretty motivated to put up with the freezes, and the shrinking inventory makes it even less worthwhile. It's a shame, it was so good when I signed up a year ago. I really like the subscription model. I've put a reminder on my calendar to close the account before the next payment date.

[fjtorres]

Here's one analysis:
http://www.niemanlab.org/2015/07/wha...iption-models/

It's a good read but it boils down to the obvious: paying anything near sale price for rentals is not a workable business model.

[HarryT]

I'm not familiar with this service. Is it something like Amazon's "Kindle Unlimited" service, where you can read as many books as you want for a monthly subscription?

It sounds as if they have a flawed business model, if they're taking in a fixed amount per subscriber, but paying out an amount that varies with the amount that the subscriber reads. KU's model of paying out a fixed "pot" of money each month that's split pro rata between every book borrowed seems more sustainable, although less desirable to publishers.

[jhowell]

"All you can eat" buffets have a similar business model to these services. You need to provide lots of bulky, yet cheap, food to make it a workable business.

I have no interest in the romance genre so this does not affect me for now. Scribd currently has a much better selection of books that I actually want to read compared with Amazon's Kindle Unlimited. I would rather have them cap the number of books allowed per month instead of reducing the quality of available books.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not familiar with this service. Is it something like Amazon's "Kindle Unlimited" service, where you can read as many books as you want for a monthly subscription?

It sounds as if they have a flawed business model, if they're taking in a fixed amount per subscriber, but paying out an amount that varies with the amount that the subscriber reads. KU's model of paying out a fixed "pot" of money each month that's split pro rata between every book borrowed seems more sustainable, although less desirable to publishers.

You nailed it.

But there is one big difference: Scribd and Oyster are both standalone services that aspire to be substitutes for ebookstores (from the publisher point of view) whereas Kindle unlimited is a *supplement* to the Kindle ebookstore and openly presented as a promotional tool for Indie publishers rather than a substitute for sales. (It is more of a substitute for free promos and permafree.)

The idea behind KU is to get ebooks in front of subscribers to help them discover new authors so they will then go on to buy other books from them.

The idea behind Scribd and Oyster is more along the lines of weaning subscribers away from buying from Amazon. Not a good idea, really.

But the hype of "all you can read for $9!!!" was supposed to make the services king. It didn't. The books being app-locked and not available on dedicated readers torpedoed that. That reduced the pool of customers to the most voracious readers and inevitably led to this purge. Few observers are surprised. Other than they lasted 18 months at it. Lots of VC money gone...

It's most likely the beginning of a death spiral for their subscription service.

[fjtorres]

Nate the great has confirmed Harlequin is also on the hit list:

http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...comment-893174

So it's not just Indie romance getting purged, it's the romance readers getting the hint to take their "addiction" elsewhere.

[AnemicOak]

Haven't done any checking, but I'd guess Avon is getting chopped just like Harlequin.

[booklover6]

Well this sucks. I love Scribd and I gladly pay more per month, why can't they just raise the rate instead of taking books away?

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Well this sucks. I love Scribd and I gladly pay more per month, why can't they just raise the rate instead of taking books away?

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.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by booklover6

Well this sucks. I love Scribd and I gladly pay more per month, why can't they just raise the rate instead of taking books away?

Would you pay$30 a month? $50?
And even that wouldn't cover the really voracious romance readers.

As Nate points out, they gave out free three month subscriptions to Harlequin fans and attracted the 20-30 book a month club.

They're paying something like 60% of cover for those ebooks which is why culling started with the more expensive ones.

But don't feel singled out. Mystery and SF books are next. Might take a few months but once they drive away the voracious romance readers they'll have reduced revenues enough they won't be able to afford other genre readers either.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Would you pay$30 a month? $50?
And even that wouldn't cover the really voracious romance readers.

As Nate points out, they gave out free three month subscriptions to Harlequin fans and attracted the 20-30 book a month club.

No, but I would pay $15 a month just for the unlimited audio books.

Yes I normally read 20-30 books a month but most are not Harlequin.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by booklover6

No, but I would pay $15 a month just for the unlimited audio books.

Yes I normally read 20-30 books a month but most are not Harlequin.

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.