Online Sales

At a standing room only session at the Frankfurt Book Fair, bestselling Brazilian author Paulo Coelho had a message for publishers: Embrace change. And, lower your e-book prices.

At the packed event, Coelho and fair director Jeurgen Boos talked about the future of the book business, with Coelho telling the audience that change could not be stopped. "It is a lost case," Coelho said. "Paulo, you're saying the war is lost?" Boos asked. "I'm not saying the war is lost," Coelho replied

BookPal is a bulk bookseller serving corporations, schools, nonprofits, and government institutions. The company has grown rapidly since its founding in 2005 and has landed on the Inc. 500/5000 list for the past three years. In part, BookPal's recent growth is due to its efforts in the ebook space; the bookseller launched a new ebook distribution platform and a mobile reading app for Android and iOS in July. Below BookPal president Tony DiCostanzo explains how the retailer's unique role as bulk seller of both print and ebooks has helped streamline distribution for large publishers and independent authors alike.

There has been a lot of conversation lately about the differences between wholesale pricing and agency pricing for ebooks and about what constitutes a "fair" division of revenue between publishers and retailers. Since the economics of bookstores have been generally misunderstood for years, it is not surprising that the understanding of what changes make sense as we switch to digital have also been misunderstood. A better grounding in the print book economic realities might enable a more informed discussion of what makes sense for digital.

Here are a couple of points about book economics

Every now and then, someone bemoans the death of the physical book, pointing out that print sales have been eclipsed by e-book sales. But according to recent numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumers are purchasing both kinds of reading material almost equally. In 2013, reports BSL, US consumers spent an average of $29.20 on physical books. The amount they spent in the same time period on e-books? $30.18. Of course, these averages vary among different age groups. For example, 55-64 year-olds spent about 3 times more ($40.28) on physical books than those under 25 years-old ($12.56). 

Once again this morning we wake up to a piece by David Streitfeld in The New York Times about Authors United and their ongoing effort to discredit Amazon. The message coming loud and clear from the legacy publishing establishment is that Amazon doesn't appreciate, and perhaps doesn't understand, the value thatagents, publishers, and chain and independent bookstores bring to authors and readers and, by extension, to society as a whole. 

Amazon, if you're reading this, we need to talk.

There's been a flurry of blogging, largely from the USA, around the recent announcement of your new service, Kindle Unlimited (not yet available in the UK).  For $10 a year, Kindle users have unlimited access to 600 000 e-books and a couple of thousand e-audiobooks.

People have been asking "Why do we need libraries anymore?"

Some of the blogs have been looking at the possible impact on public libraries, with a couple taking the predictable line of "Hey! Why do we need expensive buildings

Here's a new publishing program from Amazon which is so new that it doesn't yet have a launch day, URL, or even a name.

Late last week Amazon started sending out emails to KDP authors, informing them of a new program which Amazon plans to launch soon. According to the email, which was forwarded to me by author Angela Kulig and by Amazon's pr dept, when the new program launches authors will be welcomed to submit their unpublished book to what I would describe as a crowd sourcing program. 

Amazon has a tendency to polarize people. On one hand, there is the ruthless, relentless, ferociously efficient company that's building the Sears Roebuck of the 21st Century. But on the other, there is the fact that almost 20 years after it was launched, it has yet to report a meaningful profit. This chart captures the contradiction pretty well - massive revenue growth, no profits, or so it would seem. But actually, neither of these lines gives you a good sense of what's really going on.

Amazon discloses revenue in three segments - Media, Electronics

As my colleague Laura Owen has reported, Authors United - a group of writers who are upset at the tactics Amazon is using to negotiate with the French publisher Hachette - has posted a letter to the company's board of directors, arguing that the online retailer is being unfair to authors. Among other things, the group says Amazon is making a mistake by treating books like any other consumer product.

In fact, in a somewhat bizarre turn of events for a group that is supposedly protesting Amazon's methods

Following its letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on August 9, Authors United posted a new letter to Amazon's board of directors online Monday. Amazon's "sanctions have driven down Hachette authors' sales at Amazon.com by at least 50 percent and in some cases as much as 90 percent. These sales drops are occurring across the board: in hardcovers, paperbacks, and e-books," the letter states, continuing: "We find it hard to believe that all members of the Amazon board approve of these actions. We would like to ask you a question: Do you as an Amazon director approve of this policy