Traditional Sales

Authors Need Publishers Less than Ever
August 1, 2016 at 4:19 pm

Let me preface this by saying I run a literary fiction micro-publisher operating much in the mold of how full-service traditional publishing has for years, although because my overheads are so low, I pay my authors 50% of print and 70% of ebook royalties, something I realize large publishers cannot do. As self-publishing continues evolving,…

May Bookstore Sales Rose 3.1%
July 15, 2016 at 1:26 pm

Bookstore sales cooled slightly in May, but spending still rose for the fifth straight month this year. According to estimates released Friday morning by the U.S. Census Bureau, bookstore sales increased 3.1% in May over May 2015, rising to $826 million. The gain in bookstore sales outpaced the sales increase posted by the entire retail…

In An Interesting Twist, B&N to Sell Self-Published Books In Stores
July 8, 2016 at 2:30 pm

The big news about Barnes & Noble is that after twenty years of battling with Amazon they have finally made a competitive move that Amazon cannot match. Barnes & Noble, with 640 bookstores in 50 states, is giving self-published authors a chance to get access to their hallowed bookshelves. Meanwhile, Amazon runs one bookstore in Seattle (albeit with 3 more slated). Barnes & Noble…

Algorithms vs. Humans: What's the Better Path to Book Discovery?
June 28, 2016 at 12:52 pm

An algorithm recently bought me a Father’s Day present I didn’t need or ask for, using my own money. You see, my wife was buying sheets from Amazon when they presented her with the book The Arm by Jeff Passan (HarperCollins) as a Father’s Day suggestion. $27.95 later my charge card was hit with the…

If You Were Amazon, Would You Open Stores in Dying American Malls?
June 16, 2016 at 1:38 pm

The news from American malls just keeps getting worse, with long-time anchor stores Macy’s, JCPenney, and Sears reporting ongoing closings and bad results. Yet, we heard a leak earlier this year from General Growth Properties, one of the largest mall operators, that Amazon might be opening 400 mall stores. They quickly retracted this leak, but…

Translated Fiction Sells Better in the UK than English Fiction, Research Finds
May 10, 2016 at 10:19 am

Translated literary fiction is selling better on average in the UK than literary fiction originally written in English, according to new research, with authors including Elena Ferrante, Haruki Murakami and Karl Ove Knausgaard driving a boom in sales. Though fiction in translation accounts for just 3.5%…

With Online Book Sales, Time is of The Essence
May 10, 2016 at 7:00 am

Now is better than later because later might never come. Among the many tragic losses related to the above wisdom, one of the most trivial revolves around the topic of shopping behavior. (Apologies to the Maharishi inside us all.) And this matters a great deal in the world of books, where we know from our…