Are traditional publishers losing sales to indies?
We all know that there are some significant sales coming from independent publishers (which are sometimes just an author). We hear success stories about people like Amanda Hocking and John Locke.
Even if we are just talking about e-books, you might think that cuts into sales from the tradpubs (traditional publishers).
Unless…
People were buying so many more e-books that sales would go up both for indies and tradpubs.
That might even mean…gasp…that people are reading more. 
Well, according to this
Simon & Schuster’s digital sales rose 44% in the second quarter.
Yep…people are reading!
Well, at least they are buying books…
Take a guess at how much of Simon & Schuster’s total revenue comes from e-books.
50%?
5%?
It’s 21%.
When you are looking at Amazon selling more e-books than p-books (paperbooks), it shows you that there are still plenty of other outlets selling books.
Since we Kindle owners tend to be pretty focused on Amazon, I think, we may give their sales too much prominence.
I think the transition to e-books will accelerate…but p-books are still the majority of revenue.
I also think tradpubs will have a place for some time. I do think it’s possible that they’ll figure out a way to co-opt the market that is now indies to some extent. As a parallel, one of the things that Disney is good at doing is figuring out what is competing with the theme parks…and doing that. Waterparks getting a share of the market? A Disney waterpark will be more desirable. Miniature golf getting some of the dollars? Disney can do it. Cruising? You get the idea…
I don’t think that means the opportunity goes away for indies…but the quality bar may rise.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
August 6, 2012 at 6:44 am |
“but p-books are still the majority of revenue” How much of that revenue picture comes about because of the exhorbitant price of print books? Just wondering, because I know you have the numbers (0:
Thanks for sharing.
August 6, 2012 at 6:30 pm |
Thanks for writing, Janice!
Whether something is exorbitant or not is subjective, so I”m not going to rule on that.
It’s more complicated than it might seem at first, in part because successful, popular books pay for unsuccessful and small market books.
Hardbacks typically have a higher retail price per unit (they cost the customer more) than an e-book…but what gets reported here is revenue. That’s a bit more complex. If the hardback has a list price of $25, the publisher may be getting $12.50 for it. If the digital price is $12.99, the publisher may be getting $9.09 for it (based on the 70% Agency Model rate).
Selling twice as many e-books of the same hardback title would make the e-book generate more revenue in the above scenario. However, it gets to be much closer when you look at e-books and paperbacks.
August 12, 2012 at 1:16 am |
[...] I recently wrote about Simon & Schuster’s sales being up, and noted that there is room in the marketplace for both tradpubs (traditional publishers) and indies (independent publishers). [...]
August 23, 2012 at 3:01 pm |
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