Online Sales
October 30, 2014
oes publishing matter? Of course it does. That's one reason the dispute between Amazon.com and Hachette is so significant, because it has broader implications for the ways books are released and sold. Indeed, one of the finest aspects of the current publishing landscape is that, when it's working, things feed back into the center, and there is (or should be) room for all. This is what I don't understand about Amazon's defenders, many of who are also detractors of traditional publishing
October 28, 2014
The failure of the Fire Phone has been widely cited as the reason for Amazon's disastrous quarter, but a darker cloud has settled over the world's biggest online retailer. The core of Amazon's business-its original reason for being: selling books and other media-has grown wobbly. The problem: many people no longer want to buy stuff. They'd rather rent.
Amazon is not alone. This long-predicted shift in consumer priorities-from ownership to access-also seems to be taking a bite out of Apple, another business that depends on convincing people to buy things.
October 23, 2014
For the last few years 'discoverability' has been the word on the lips of pretty much every snake-oil salesman at pretty much every publishing conference.
Recently though the publishing industry - god bless it - has appeared to have gone a bit quiet on the whole 'discoverability' idea and it seems like everyone is now trotting off after the new prettiest girl at the party - the 'direct to consumer' website.
Most of the big publishers have either launched or are about to launch new websites with a "heavy focus on direct to consumer marketing"
October 23, 2014
Discoverability may seem like an overworked buzzword, but its importance to publishers has never been greater. As readers shift from purchasing books at brick-and-mortar stores to shopping online, publishers need to find new and innovative ways to get eyes on their titles.
October 22, 2014
Last Friday Michael Tamblyn, president and COO of ereading platform Kobo, took to Twitter with a 32-tweet manifesto on the Amazon-Hachette dispute. Tamblyn's tweets were meant to sway self-published authors from so heartily supporting Amazon, as many have throughout Hachette's negotiations. (Here's a link to the first in the series, but you can trace the whole monologue on Twitter starting on the morning of October 17th.)
October 21, 2014
After I wrote a piece calling self-published authors who defend Amazon "no better than Ayn Rand libertarians," I received a flood of social media high-fives from those within publishing, their frustration with the giant palpable. I also received fierce blowback from the self-published community. The most thorough and entertaining came from Joe Konrath, who has self-published 24 novels (three of them No. 1 Amazon sellers), hundreds of stories, and has sold over 3 million copies of his books.
He, in turn, received a flood of digital high-fives from the self-publishing community for his zingers
October 21, 2014
Simon & Schuster has negotiated a multiyear deal with Amazon for both print and electronic books, the publisher told its writers Monday.
The agreement "is economically advantageous for both Simon & Schuster and its authors and maintains the author's share of income generated from eBook sales," said a letter signed by Carolyn Reidy, the publisher's chief executive. A copy of the letter was obtained by The New York Times.
"With some limited exceptions," the new contract gives control of e-book pricing to Simon & Schuster, the letter said.
October 16, 2014
In the midst of an industry shift towards direct-to-consumer sales, stronger publisher brands, and deeper reader relationships, BookShout! is uniquely poised to assist publishers as they evolve into consumer-facing companies. The direct-to-consumer ebook platform helps over 2,000 publishers and authors sell their books direct across a variety of devices and channels and tracks valuable readership data after the sale. Following founder and CEO Jason Illian explains what makes BookShout! stand out in a market saturated with ecommerce solutions.
October 14, 2014
The writer Ursula K. Le Guin recently weighed in on Amazon's dispute with the publisher Hachette over e-book pricing. Referring to how Amazon is making Hachette books harder to buy on its site, she said, "We're talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, 'disappearing' an author."
Her statement was greeted with ridicule and outrage in the places on the Internet where those who use Amazon's self-publishing platform hang out. Here are a few of the more printable comments from the Passive Voice blog:
October 10, 2014
Hachette today launched an ambitious initiative to share the entirety of its sales-data with its authors and their agents. The new sales channel, The Author and Agent Portal, will feature confidential sales reports for all of its titles, Nielsen BookScan weekly sales data, an online-piracy-reporting tool, prepublication timelines, and more. Agents will have access to all of the information that their author sees and will receive regular royalty statements through the platform.
