Another Way for Publishers to Control Their Own Destiny

Habits are hard to break, especially for book publishers. How else can you explain the industry's insistence on sticking with rigid, tightly synchronized release dates for new publications? It made sense in the old days when print ruled and the big brick-and-mortars dominated retail. But even back then I used to think it was silly to delay a book's release date for months just so we could get a slot in one of those brick-and-mortar promotional campaigns.

Amazon makes this less of an issue and I always appreciated their willingness to allow for drop-in titles, even when those titles required a lot of promotional support. Amazon is able to turn on a dime since they don't have to coordinate a title's roll-out across hundreds of physical stores. Nevertheless, I haven't seen publishers evolve and embrace the new promotional opportunities, and release date options, that are available with ebooks.

Kindle First

Once again, Amazon leads the way. Their recently-launched Kindle First service is brilliant. They're giving customers the opportunity to buy new books on their platform one month before they're available everywhere else. It looks like the big publishers haven't opted into this; perhaps they're finally waking up to the fact that Amazon is eating their lunch.

Kindle First offers the earliest access to these new books and you can buy one each month for $0 with your Amazon Prime membership. That's a free purchase, not a loaner. So Kindle First becomes yet another reason to sign up for Amazon Prime.

Meanwhile, publishers who haven't opted in to Kindle First probably think they're showing Amazon who's boss. Yeah, right. Rather than staying out of the program, publishers should launch something new and exciting of their own.

Publisher First

Publishers, how about making your ebooks available exclusively on your own site 30 days before you release them everywhere else? This, of course, means you've got to have a robust direct ebook channel established on your website. We know that's not the case for most publishers, but hopefully this is another reminder of why they should make a direct ebook sales channel a priority.

Imagine the volume you could drive if your frontlist was available only on your site for the first month. Who says you have to treat retailers equally? Yes, there will be backlash from the big ebook retailers, but let's face it...those retailers want to carry your bestsellers too, so I doubt they'd give you too much grief.

Speaking of which, this model isn't optimal for all books. Titles from unknown authors on nichey topics aren't likely to benefit from it. But what about your bestsellers? What about the titles from your proven authors, the ones with the platforms?

It's not just that you'll keep 100% of the revenue in these direct sales. This is also about building a direct relationship with your readers and being able to market to them in the future. And yes, most publisher websites are not a consumer destination today. But what happens when that website is the exclusive outlet for the first 30 days of each publication? I think consumers will find a reason to go there.

Pre-release samples

On a related note, I'd like to make a plea for every publisher to rethink their ebook samples strategy. Why in the world are these also tied to the book's official release date? Publishers, get your samples out there before the book publishes.What is the benefit to holding the samples till the book's release date? Amazon now lets consumers backorder an ebook before it's released, so point your customers there if you have to. But please don't let me read some review or tweet about a book that's coming out next month and then not give me a way to get access to the sample before the book publishes. I guarantee I'll forget about this book and you'll lose the sale.

Also, why are these samples under lock and key, DRM'd like they contain the country's nuclear launch codes? Here's a thought: Why not make those samples completely DRM-free and actually encourage readers to pass them along?Maybe you should consider putting these exclusively on your site before they go to retailers. It's another way to establish that direct relationship with your readers, and if you remove the DRM element it should be extremely easy to implement.