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Home » Economics » Page 2

Economics

Three Significant Announcements Regarding E-books and Audiobooks

By Steve Laubeon January 29, 2018
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Last week there were three significant announcements from Apple, Google, and Walmart of interest to all authors. First the three bits of news and then a few observations.

Apple
Apple announced that their iBooks app is being renamed to simply Books. Accompanying it will be a complete redesign of the reading app, their store, and the addition of an audiobook tab to make it easier for users to access their audiobook library. You will see the new design roll out over the next few months.

The audio tab is significant because last year Audible (owned by Amazon) and Apple ended their exclusive global digital audiobook agreement. There were competition complaints from the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, plus an investigation was started by the European Commission. The result is that Apple will now compete with Amazon for audiobook sales. A category that is growing very fast.

Last month, to head this new initiative, Apple hired Kashif Zafar, who was the senior VP at Audible (Amazon) and before that was the content VP at Barnes & Noble for their Nook division.

Google
Google announced they too will be selling audiobooks via their Google Play Store. As of today they are offering 50% off your first audiobook purchase. They are launching with a long list of best-selling audiobooks priced at under $10. In addition they will allow buyers to share their purchases with up to five family members at no extra cost. Google Play focuses on individual audio book sales in contrast to the subscription model of Audible.

Walmart
Walmart announced their new partnership with Kobo, the ebook retailer that is a major player in Canada (with about 60% of digital book sales). (Kobo is actually  one of the e-book and audiobook divisions of Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company, which also owns OverDrive.) Kobo’s e-reading devices have been available in the U.S. for a long time, but have struggled competing with Amazon’s Kindle, the smartphone, and the Nook from Barnes & Noble.

Kobo offers over six million e-books and audiobooks in their catalog which means those will become part of the online store of Walmart.

It is also assumed that Walmart will begin selling the Kobo e-reader device in their 4,600 locations. Walmart sold the Sony Reader a long time ago and also has previously sold both the Kindle and the Kobo. It will be interesting to watch those displays to see what devices they will be offering this Summer.

What Does This Mean?

The first thing that comes to mind? Books are selling and are a profitable source of revenue! Otherwise none of these e-commerce giants would invest in them. That is great news.

Second, these major companies are unwilling to cede market dominance to Amazon. Competition is a good thing for consumers.

Third, this means more opportunities for ebooks and audiobooks to be sold.

Fourth, audio is a common thread in all these moves. The category is no longer an afterthought. In case you had not heard, the latest premium Kindle dedicated e-reader device (the Oasis) is designed to also play audio books. Using Bluetooth technology the user can switch between audio and text with both remaining synced.

Fifth, seemingly left out is Barnes & Noble. But they already have their Nook e-reader and sell e-books online. However, they did have an announcement of their own. They changed the name of their self-publishing platform from Nook Press to Barnes & Noble Press. They redesigned their entire publishing web site and increased royalties to the authors.

Technical Matters as a Reminder

A reminder to everyone. There are two types of ebook formats.
1) the Kindle format used exclusively by Amazon. It is technically a .mobi file. Mobi and Kindle are nearly synonymous. One is the file (mobi), the other is the device or app that reads the file (Kindle). The file is proprietary to Amazon and can only be read using the Kindle reader, app, or online software. It provides the exclusive ecosystem controlled by Amazon.
2) the ePub format used by everyone else (Apple, Kobo, Nook, etc.)

Please be sure to understand the difference. You cannot easily read an ePub file on  Kindle without some conversion. You cannot read a mobi (Kindle) file on an epub reader. But you can read an ePub file on any non-Kindle device (Kobo, Nook, Apple, etc).

Note however, that although the ePub file is universal, each ebook retailer can require some massaging of the file to fit their specific requirements.

Indie Authors Must Decide

If you self-publish as an Indie author you have a decision to make. According to AuthorEarnings, Amazon controls over 80% of the e-book market in the U.S. For Indie authors Amazon offers many incentives to publish their ebooks exclusively with them. And if the author also has an audio version Amazon’s Audible division is even more dominant in the marketplace.

Thus the decision. Do you go exclusive with Amazon? Or do you expand your offerings? Up until now the Indie author didn’t risk losing too many U.S. sales by staying within Amazon’s system. But with Walmart making the entire Kobo catalog a part of their site and Apple renewing their interest, the Indie author could be leaving sales on the table if they remain exclusive.

I’d be curious to know what our readers plan to do.

Over at The Christian Writers Institute we publish The Christian Writers Market Guide and a few other books on writing. From the beginning I wanted our print books and ebooks available everywhere, which is the same philosophy the major traditional publishers follow.

To help with this, we use Draft2Digital.com to handle all our non-Amazon e-book sales. It is a one-stop shop and has a user-friendly interface and reporting system. Our non-Kindle user customers are grateful we make the books widely available. Recently Draft2Digital added support for Amazon Kindle files as well.

 

 

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Category: Book Business, Book Sales, E-Books, Economics, News You Can Use, The Publishing Life, TrendsTag: Audio Books, Book Sales, ebooks, Technology

Retail is Dead! Or is it?

By Steve Laubeon November 6, 2017
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You’ve read the news. This calendar year bankruptcies or total closures were announced by Toys R Us, Gymboree, Bebe, American Apparel, Guess, Rue 21, The Limited, Gander Mountain, Vitamin World, and Family Christian Stores. Sears and Kmart announced last Friday that they were closing another 63 stores in January, on top of the 358 they closed already this year. And the watchful vultures are …

Read moreRetail is Dead! Or is it?
Category: Book Business, Book Sales, Economics, Publishing History, Publishing News, TrendsTag: Book Business, Book Sales, Publishing News

Show Me the Money!

By Karen Ballon June 7, 2017
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I’ll never forget the Sunday I was getting ready to leave church, and the pastor’s wife came up to me and touched my arm. “Karen, my son can’t find a job, so he’s decided to make some fast money by writing a book and having it published. Do you have any counsel for him?” I’m so proud of myself that I didn’t guffaw in her face. Not so proud that I fixed her with a hard look and replied, “Do me a …

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Category: Economics, Money, The Writing LifeTag: Economics, Faith, Money, The Writing Life

Family Christian Stores Closes All Locations

By Steve Laubeon February 27, 2017
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Last Thursday Family Christian Stores (FCS) announced they will be closing all 240 locations in 36 states, liquidating their inventory, and laying off over 3,000 employees. It is a sad day for Christian retail. In this case, the only surprise is that it came so soon after their previous bankruptcy reorganization. In February 2015 FCS suddenly declared bankruptcy and it was not until June of that …

Read moreFamily Christian Stores Closes All Locations
Category: Book Business, Economics, Legal Issues, Publishing History, Publishing NewsTag: Book Business, Economics, Family Christian, Publishing News

How Self-Publishing Has Changed Authors

By Dan Balowon January 24, 2017
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As a literary agent, not a day goes by when I don’t encounter the changes in thinking from authors caused by the expansion and availability of self-publishing. It’s understandable, because there are over twice as many books self-published every year in the United States than are published by traditional publishers. Traditional and self-publishing generate over one million new books every …

Read moreHow Self-Publishing Has Changed Authors
Category: Agents, Book Business, Book Proposals, Book Sales, Career, Economics, Get Published, Marketing, Self-Publishing, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, Self-Publishing, Traditional Publishing

Who are the Major Retail Outlets for CBA Books?

By Steve Laubeon November 28, 2016
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[This post had to be updated and revised in March 2017 and again in August 2019 due to numerous changes in the industry.] The question came up recently asking which retail store is the most important to a CBA publisher for selling print editions of their books? And to which store are the most books sold? CBA is a label to describe the Christian book market. It used to be an acronym for Christian …

Read moreWho are the Major Retail Outlets for CBA Books?
Category: Book Business, Book Business, Book Sales, Economics, Marketing, Publishing History, The Publishing Life, The Writing Life

When Your Book Doesn’t Sell

By Steve Laubeon November 14, 2016
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You have spent years writing your book and now it has been published by a traditional publisher. It took a while for the publisher to bring it to market. But it is finally out there. Dreams have been realized. You. Are. A. Published. Author. But then the sales reports begin to appear. Sales have floundered. There isn’t any buzz. No one is even commenting on your Facebook page. It’s a …

Read moreWhen Your Book Doesn’t Sell
Category: Agents, Book Business, Book Sales, Career, Economics, Editing, PlatformTag: Book Marketing, Book Sales, Failure

Confusing Industry News in Bookselling

By Steve Laubeon June 20, 2016
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Last week the Hastings, a chain of 126 retail stores, declared bankruptcy. Approximately half of their sales are from books (the other half are movies, music, games, etc). They claim “a decline in the market for physical media properties like music, movies, books, games and media rentals.” They had losses of $16 million on sales of $400 million. Among their largest unsecured creditors …

Read moreConfusing Industry News in Bookselling
Category: Book Business, Economics, TrendsTag: Book Business, Book Sales, Trends

Limitations Inherent to Non-Fiction Publishing

By Dan Balowon May 31, 2016
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Some categories of books in the Christian market have very limited potential for publication. A publisher may do just one every year or every ten years on a particular topic or category. When you send your proposal to an agent or ask your agent to pitch a title in one of these categories, our first reaction would be how limited the potential is to sell. I am not writing about the potential for …

Read moreLimitations Inherent to Non-Fiction Publishing
Category: Book Proposals, Branding, Career, Economics, Get Published, PlatformTag: Bet Published, book proposals

Zip It Mr. Galilei

By Dan Balowon February 16, 2016
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Did you ever tell someone, “Don’t feel that way” and not get the best reaction? In the same vein is “Don’t be that way.” Honestly, I could never figure that one out. Feels like a philosophical conundrum of the highest order. Telling someone not to be. Four hundred years ago this week in 1616, Cardinal Bellarmine, representing the Catholic Church, issued an order to astronomer Galileo Galilei that …

Read moreZip It Mr. Galilei
Category: Book Business, Branding, Contracts, Economics, Get Published, Humor, Indie, Marketing, The Publishing LifeTag: Book Business, The Publishing Life
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