eBook vs. Hardcover: Beyond the Headlines

[DMcCunney]

An analysis of the Amazon announcement.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2010...the-headlines/
______
Dennis

[loveangel]

bump! want to know

[Ravensknight]

eBooks undoubtedly offer the opportunity to expand overall book sales and direct engagement with readers, but only if publishers can get above the trees and take a look at the forest.

Well duh! That ending to this otherwise "pooh pooh the news" article is about the only positive thing the writer had to say.

[vaughnmr]

If anything, the evidence is staring some of the publishers in the face, and they continue to deny the reality. There is definitely a change underway, who will take advantage of it? And who will fight it, tooth and nail? Agency 5 beware!

[carld]

Prognosticating here based on not much but my own opinion, but I expect the big publishers to join the newspapers music industry in their death march in the next few years. Some of them will hang on as there will always be a market for paper books, but I think they'll end up smaller and less influential. Ebooks and self-publishing are the future, maybe not the immediate future but they're coming.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by carld

Prognosticating here based on not much but my own opinion, but I expect the big publishers to join the newspapers music industry in their death march in the next few years. Some of them will hang on as there will always be a market for paper books, but I think they'll end up smaller and less influential. Ebooks and self-publishing are the future, maybe not the immediate future but they're coming.

Strong advice: if you are a writer looking to make your living writing books, do not assume you can do it via self-publishing.

The tools are there to publish your own work, but connecting to your market, letting them know you exist, and actually selling your work is another matter. You can justifiably argue that they don't do it well, but actually connecting to the market and selling books is what publishers do.
______
Dennis

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

An analysis of the Amazon announcement.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2010...the-headlines/
______
Dennis

To call this article "analysis" is to play fast loose with the meaning of the term. Like many commentators apparently miffed by Amazon's success in the e-book market, many with vested interests in traditional publishing or are arch Apple partisans, the grumbling (and sometimes outrage) is almost exclusively about things Amazon did not mention in the press release.

It's perfectly true that more pbooks were sold than Kindle ebooks; Amazon didn't mention pbooks -- it stated that even though more people are buying more hardcover books form Amazon than ever before, the the ebook buyers have now outpaced them.

Nor did Amazon suggest it was taking over the world: nowhere does it suggest it is the only place to buy books. Amazon is a major vendor, yes; but consumers have tons of other choices around the world. However in ebooks -- and that was the point of calling out the James Patterson ebook sales -- Amazon is dominating.

There's even a complaint that Amazon might be encouraging the purchase of backlist titles and somehow implying it wasn't selling many first-run books. True or not, how is this a negative? Traditional publishing leaves so much money on the table it's criminal: countless authors's older titles remain out of print or unavailable except in the largest bookstores. Ebooks solves that problem, putting more money in publishers, and writers, pockets. Backlist is a great thing!

I find it astonishing so many folks in the industry take Amazon's success as a personal affront. The company is succeeding because it delivers a great customer experience -- convenience, choice, value -- which results in repeat business. For me, as a consumer, I applaud that. I wish far more consumer companies were as transparent and easy to deal with as Amazon.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by carld

Prognosticating here based on not much but my own opinion, but I expect the big publishers to join the newspapers music industry in their death march in the next few years. Some of them will hang on as there will always be a market for paper books, but I think they'll end up smaller and less influential. Ebooks and self-publishing are the future, maybe not the immediate future but they're coming.

Commercial publishers fit Churchill's description of democracy: they're the worst way to get your book out there, except for all the other ways.

Ebooks aren't just the future, they're an ever-larger part of the present. I don't see paper vanishing, but ebooks are going to continue to grow market share - though whether at the expense of hardcovers or paperbacks we don't really know yet.

I don't see self-publishing taking over the same way, though many here do.

Self-publishing allows for far more variety in books, and much greater variability in quality. Some self-published books are really good - others are so incompetently written there's no way to know if the underlying story could be any good or not. The range is tremendous.

Also: Self-publishing = fewer readers = less money.

Physical self-publishing (as opposed to electronic) also often suffers from much higher per-unit production costs, which raises the prices without bringing any more money to the author.

Ebooks are much better, but they run into the problem of obscurity. Not every person will like any given book, so the best way to sell more books is to get it in front of more eyeballs.

Commercial publishers (despite all their flaws) are several orders of magnitude better at getting books in front of eyeballs.

Part of the problem is that getting books out there in front of eyeballs is a full-time job - often taking more time than writing. You can't build a solid writing career without regular production, but you can't write a new book if all your time is spent promoting the current one.

If commercial publishers fail, something very similar will arise to replace them.

[carld]

But how much actual help are traditional publishers in connecting to the market and selling books? If you've got a big name or a hot book, a lot I'm sure. But, I hear and read a lot about how many authors get little or no assistance from publishers, who leave them to make their own connections and do their own promotion. That's a theme I hear over and over again.

Ebooks are changing that, not all at once, and it's not going to be all or nothing. Traditional publishing will continue to dominate for probably years, but ebooks and self-publishing will grow out their niche eventually.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by carld

But how much actual help are traditional publishers in connecting to the market and selling books? If you've got a big name or a hot book, a lot I'm sure. But, I hear and read a lot about how many authors get little or no assistance from publishers, who leave them to make their own connections and do their own promotion. That's a theme I hear over and over again.

You are hearing from those who weren't happy and left, so the stories you hear are all bad. That doesn't mean everyone is unhappy. Authors who sell well will be inclined to think their agent/editor/publisher has done a good job, those who sell badly, the reverse.

[carld]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

You are hearing from those who weren't happy and left, so the stories you hear are all bad. That doesn't mean everyone is unhappy. Authors who sell well will be inclined to think their agent/editor/publisher has done a good job, those who sell badly, the reverse.

I don't think it's that simple. I read a lot of writing and author blogs and it's a common refrain. Of course it's not going to apply to the big names, like I said. But it apparently does for lots of other people.

Disclaimer: I'm not a published author and only know what I read and hear, but I hear it a lot.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by carld

I don't think it's that simple. I read a lot of writing and author blogs and it's a common refrain. Of course it's not going to apply to the big names, like I said. But it apparently does for lots of other people.

Part of it though surely is going to be that every author will think they are above average. They can't all be right.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by carld

But how much actual help are traditional publishers in connecting to the market and selling books? If you've got a big name or a hot book, a lot I'm sure. But, I hear and read a lot about how many authors get little or no assistance from publishers, who leave them to make their own connections and do their own promotion.

If your book's not on the shelf, no-one's going to buy it. A large part of a print publisher's job is just getting the book out there into shops so that people can see it, and that is not easy to do on your own.

Sure, Amazon's self-publishing system makes this a lot easier for ebooks, but even established midlist authors who've gone into self-publishing (leveraging the exposure they got from traditional publishers in the process) aren't really taking in enough to live on. It's a nice sideline, and it's a good way to monetise books that your publisher has passed on, but anyone thinking of doing this as a career move shouldn't give up their day job.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by carld

But how much actual help are traditional publishers in connecting to the market and selling books? If you've got a big name or a hot book, a lot I'm sure. But, I hear and read a lot about how many authors get little or no assistance from publishers, who leave them to make their own connections and do their own promotion. That's a theme I hear over and over again.

Ebooks are changing that, not all at once, and it's not going to be all or nothing. Traditional publishing will continue to dominate for probably years, but ebooks and self-publishing will grow out their niche eventually.

I think the problem comes from misaligned expectations: commercial publishers do market books, but they market them to the book trade, rather than directly to readers. Their budget goes to things like sending Advance Reader Copies to bookstores, putting the book in a catalog and having a person take that catalog to book buyers and say - "You should carry this book in your bookstore chain."

Commercial distribution involves a lot more than just getting a listing in Ingram.

Midlist and beginner authors may not get book tours and the like - but they do get a sales team working to get their book in bookstores all across North America.

It's not a lot by some standards, but it's so much more on a nationwide scale than any of the alternatives provide that it's a huge advantage to the author. It's so huge it's almost immeasurable.

Self publishing just can't compete for getting books in front of eyeballs.

[clintbradford]

Wow ... more eBooks being sold than actual books. Seems like the last people actually turning pages on their laps will be U.S. congressmen.