Surviving the Rapid Changes in Publishing

With the demise of Borders, the growth in e-publishing and self-publishing, and the growing number of big name writers who are walking away from new contracts offers to take control of their work and incomes, there’s plenty to talk about these days. For every Amanda Hocking who sells a ton of books and lands a lucrative contract with a large publishing house, thousands are floundering, and a small number are resorting to unprofessional tactics to sell books. Some publishing houses may not survive the turbulence. Writers are beginning to question the relevancy of agents, and good editors are becoming worth their weight in gold, yet many writers refuse to pay even a fraction of that for their services. So, how does one stay afloat in this sea of change?

Author Dean Wesley Smith authors interesting advice in his blog. He suggests not pursuing traditional publishers or agents right now. Too many publishing houses are struggling to deal with dwindling sales and rapidly diminishing bookshelf space in the stores. You can read more of his thoughts at http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=5052

An increasing number of traditionally published authors are claiming that their e-book incomes are outstripping all of their print sales combined. So, do we all go the e-publishing route? Well, wait a sec, there are a lot of things to consider. Many of the writers who are doing well have already built a readership with numerous, traditionally published books. Aside from Amanda Hocking, who readily admits that she worked long and hard at social networking to promote her books, the vast majority of unknown writers aren’t going to make enough to live on unless they’ve written a good manuscript and are prepared to work their butts off promoting it. Even then there are no guarantees.

Some writers suggest that you write as much as you can (but not crap) and put it all out there, including short fiction to start building a brand name. Branding itself is a whole other topic for discussion, but many suggest it’s an essential marketing tool these days, just like book tours once were. Even blog tours these days don’t seem as popular for promoting a book as they once were.

I don’t have any clear answers to survival, but common sense tells me that working diligently at writing and improving your craft, networking (physically and virtually), promoting, and researching all the many aspects of the publishing scene, are as essential as ever. I will say, don’t be too quick to publish until your manuscript has been read by reliable critiquers and professionally edited. It will help make a big difference in your success. If you have any tips for survival, please share them. If we all help one another then we might do just fine.

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://bit.ly/i983XE, Chapters/Indigo http://bit.ly/gtFSFw
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

E-book Sales Growing by Leaps and Bounds

This week, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) issued a press release about the dramatic rise in e-book sales compared with one year ago. The report focuses on sales stats for January 2011, but I think it’s a good reflection for what’s to come.

What struck me—though I shouldn’t be surprised—is the significant decrease in print sales. According to the AAP, adult hard cover sales dropped by 11.3%, adult trade paperback dropped by 19.7%, and mass market books fell by a whopping 30.9%. Yikes! This must be giving print publishers heart palpitations, unless they’re embracing the e-book market. E-book sales in January 2011 were up by a whopping 115.8% from January 2010.

The children’s/young adult categories weren’t hurt quite as much. Hard covers were down by only 1.9% and trade paperbacks dropped by 17.7%.

The AAP also provided stats for religious, professional and scholarly books, as well as audio books. Dollar amounts were also stated with the percentages, so if you’d like to see more, go to http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2011_March/January2011StatsPressRelease.htm

The bottom line is that print publishers who are still hesitating to publish electronic versions of books are losing out big time. As writers, it’s important that we make sure our contracts stipulate that publishers actually commit to publishing our books electronically within a specified time period. All publishers demand electronic rights these days; we need to make sure they actually commit to this new way of buying, reading, and publishing books.

THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://bit.ly/i983XE
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Does the Old Way of Creating a Bestseller Need to Change?

While doing research for a workshop I and a colleague gave on e-books, e-readers, and e-publishing, I came across some interesting stats, information, and opinions about the revolutionary world of e-books and e-publishing.

One of the things that struck me was J.A. Konrath’s fascinating blog about the world of e-books. Konrath believes that the old way of creating bestsellers through the large publishing houses’ distribution channels and coop arrangements with bookstore chains and big box stores, will change, thanks largely to e-books. E-book selling has taken out the entire distribution and coop process as writers find easy, simple ways to publish their books and place them straight into e-book stores. Konrath maintains that the current prices large publishers charge for e-books (anywhere from $9.99 to $16.99) will have to be reduced if they want to compete. There are too many good and/or popular books that are selling for much lower prices. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo sells for $5.00 on Sony’s ebook store, for example. Stephen King, and Dean Koontz also have e-books on the market for under $10.00, or even under $5.00 with some of their titles. I think Konrath is right, and here’s a great example of why:

Twenty-six year old Amanda Hocking has quickly become an e-book bestseller with her nine self-published paranormal novels about trolls, vampires, and zombies. What’s so astounding about Hocking is that she only began publishing ebooks in March 2010. By the end of that year she’d sold 164,000 copies of her e-books priced from $.99 to $2.99. This January she sold over 450,000 copies, (99% of them e-books). She attributes her success to aggressive marketing on twitter, Facebook, and her blogs; but here’s the thing: she’s outselling big name authors. How is a large publisher going to compete with the wave of independently published books that lots of people are buying?

Konrath says that in the future, distribution and coop won’t be the main reason a book sells. It will be price and content. Hocking isn’t the only unknown author who’s selling well. If you follow the amazon and kindle forums, you’ll quickly realize that a growing percentage of unknown writers are selling thousands of copies of their books, and when a print book, on average, sells only 250 copies these days, that’s something.

To read all of Konrath’s Feb. 8th blog on this topic, go to http://jakonrath.blogspot.com and to read a bit more about Amanda Hocking’s amazing story go to http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2011-02-09-ebooks09_ST_N.htm

Coming in March 2011, THE OPPOSITE OF DARK, http://tinyurl.com/2frw58u
My Alex Bellamy mysteries can be purchased at
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

More Publishing Stats

After writing last week’s blog about the future of publishing, I came across some interesting statistics. An article in Publishers Weekly stated that Amazon executives claim their physical book business rose by double digits for the first half of 2010. They also state that amazon’s media segment, which includes books and e-books, rose 15% in the second quarter of the year. How much of that percentage is e-books versus videos and other forms of media wasn’t specified in the article. Regardless of what amazon is selling, it appears to be doing well as they’ve opened thirteen new fulfillment centers this year. To read the whole article go to http://tinyurl.com/37kj89g

The American Association of Publishers issued an interesting press release on July 14th stating that books sales were up 11.6% compared to this time last year. The adult hardcover category was up 43.2% in May and sales to date are up by 21.7%. Oddly enough, adult paperback sales decreased 2.2% for May, but are up 15.7% on the year so far. Adult mass market book sales decreased 14.6% and were down by 7.3% on the year. Why sales have risen on more expensive books compared to the much cheaper mass market paperback isn’t explained in the release and is a complete mystery to me.

Not surprisingly, e-book sales grew 162.8% for the month of May and are up a whopping 207.4% on the year to date. AAP’s data estimates that e-book sales now comprise 8.48% of the total trade books market, compared to only 2.89% for the same period last year. To read the entire release go to http://tinyurl.com/3xnzxjj

What does all this mean for the future of publishing? Based on this snapshot, print books are not out of the running by any means, but the e-book market is catching up fast. One can only imagine what the e-book market share will be this time next year.

As always, my amateur sleuth, Vancouver-based, Alex Bellamy mysteries can be purchased at
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n

Thoughts on the Future of Publishing

This week, I had an interesting discussion and read a couple of articles about the explosion in e-publishing that is throwing traditional print publishers into a bit of a tailspin. There’s no doubt that the e-book market is growing rapidly. When I first wrote about e-publishing sales, they captured only about 1% of the market. Several months later, I read statistics indicating that the market was up to 3%. A recent article by Christine Kearney published in The Vancouver Sun suggested that e-books now account for 5% to 6% of all U.S. book sales, although this is still a fledgling market not yet making money for most publishers. Also, traditional print publishers are losing money on books and have been for several years. For this reason, Kearney believes that publishers will accept the work of proven authors with great sales records, a trend they’ve been leaning toward for some time, in fact. This doesn’t bode well for up and coming midlist authors who’ve already taken their share of hits over the past twenty years.

There is a growing battle for readers from traditional publishers, Amazon, e-publishers, and independent authors. While independent authors have been marking down their newly published e-books to a dollar or less to attract readers, it seems that some of the big publishers are following suit. According to a piece in the Southern Review of Books, Harlequin is actually giving away a 15,000 e-book novella to readers, hoping to entice them to purchase the author’s full length work.

So, I’ve been wondering, where is all of this going to lead? As author and publisher, Julie H. Ferguson suggests in her insightful blog, the e-book explosion will definitely impact a writer’s contract. As Julie points out, it’s up to writers to keep up with the times and trends whether their publishers are on board with the e-book world or not.

The thing is, with over one million books being published (not including reprints) every year and with so many more people choosing to publish electronically, is there a real market for even a fraction of all those books? Statistics indicate that people aren’t reading more than they used to; in fact, they’re reading and buying fewer books. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the average book sells maybe 250 copies. With so many more books being published, could that figure drop to say, fifty copies in another five years? A writer’s world has always been challenging and competitive. While producing and promoting a book is certainly easier than it was fifteen years ago, the battle to rise from obscurity and sell lots of books might be harder than ever. It wouldn’t be wise to count on royalty income as one’s sole retirement plan. Given the way things are going, the odds aren’t great. On the other hand, I know a few fairly unknown independent authors who sell far more than 250 print copies of their work, so who knows?

To read the entire Kearney article go to http://tinyurl.com/36al3wh

You’ll find the Southern Review of Books’ piece on e-books under No. 26 at http://anvilpub.net/southern_review_of_books.htm

To read more of Julie’s insightful blogs on this and other topics go to http://beaconlit.blogspot.com/2010/02/explosion-in-e-books-will-affect-our.html

More Interesting Book Stats

I came across interesting publishing statistics for Canada on Dan Poynter’s Para Publishing website. The page, http://bookstatistics.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm shows 2008 and earlier years for several countries. In Canada in 2008, there was:

. Over $1.5 billion in sales, mostly generated through the 230 Indigo Books and Music stores

. About 50,000 titles published. (I’m not sure this is correct. Seems like a lot.)

. Over 630 publishers

. Government grants to publishers totalled $48 million

. Export books totalled $154.8 million; foreign rights, $313 million (probably under-reported)

In 2007, 31% of Canadian adults did not read a single book for pleasure. The percentage was 27% in the U.S., but of those who did read most read more than 20 books during the year, which was the same for U.S.

Here are highlights of stats on small press and self-publishing taken from http://www.brennerbooks.com/

. 54% of small independent publishers are male, 42% are female (3% won’t say)

. California has six times the number of small publishers than any other state

. Small presses publish an average of 7 titles each

. Half of the high income small publishers earned over $1 million in 1997 working out of home offices

. The typical independent publisher (indie) works 50 hours a week

. They produce four times as many nonfiction titles as fiction titles. Juvenile and poetry are the most popular fiction genres. Self-help, how-to and business lead in the nonfiction categories

. Their most popular publishing publications are the PMA Newsletter, Publishers Weekly and the SPAN newsletter

. Book design costs between $10 and $150 an hour

. They pay between $5 and $18 per page for interior page layout. (keep in mind this is for print books)

. On average it takes 475 hours to write a fiction title and 725 hours to write a nonfiction title

I would dispute that last stat. Either that or I take much longer than average. There are many more stats to browse over at the above links

As always, my amateur sleuth, Vancouver-based, Alex Bellamy mysteries can be purchased at
FATAL ENCRYPTION, http://tinyurl.com/ddzsxl
TAXED TO DEATH, http://tinyurl.com/czsy5n