Article: No one buys books

[German Translator]

https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
No one buys books
Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.

---Discusses the celebrity and beststeller-driven Big 5 and also mentions indy authors:

If publishing houses make minimal investment in marketing their authors and focus largely on celebrity books and their backlist, authors who can’t snag a large advance might have better luck building their own audience and publishing elsewhere.

The romance category has already gone independent.

Many of those heavy readers of romance novels at that time switched to self-published stories. A very different price point. 99 cents, $1.99, away from what we call mass-market trade paperbacks… The mass-market trade paperback is the sort of small-format mass-market book, like it is a trade paperback, but a smaller format. It has been declining for the last 25 years. But we had a step change around ’14, ‘15, with this trend that so many consumers went away from mass-market books into electronic ebooks in particular and self-published books.”

— Markus Dohle, CEO, Penguin Random House

[R. C.]

Wow.

[Post-Crisis D]

I haven't published traditionally, but from what I recall, publishers expected authors to do most of their own marketing.  And authors had to pay out of their own pocket (or advance) for most, if not all, of that.  That would be stuff like traveling to book signings, radio/TV promos/interviews where possible and whatever other means of marketing the author may do.

Even just a few years ago, self-publishing had a stigma despite the number of authors who had historically self-published.  There is no as much of a stigma against self-publishing anymore.  And, more and more people are opting for eBooks and self-published eBooks are pretty much identical to eBooks from big publishing companies.

So, I wonder if the big publishers have effectively experienced a "brain drain" where those authors that were successful at marketing their books just sort of cut out the middleman and newer authors just skipped the middleman entirely, both due to the ease of self-publishing these days and the growing loss of stigma around it.

Which would mean not that people aren't buying books but that people aren't buying very many books from the big publishers.

[elleoco]

From what I see on reader forums, there are voracious Romance readers determined not to pay anything for their books. They use Libby and other sources like that. At a guess some have no problem with piracy. However, I don't believe "no one" buys books. As a voracious reader myself I have a monthly book budget to keep it under control and do get ebooks from the library and KU, and also use up that book budget every month. There are even a few authors whose overpriced traditionally published ebooks I buy every year rather than wait until I can get them at the library. I also see a lot of posts on those forums by readers who are like me or who do buy hard copies of their books.

[Matthew]

Interesting write-up, hadn't heard of The Trial.

This confirms a few things I suspected, mainly, even the big names hardly earn out their advances, and trad pub wants to spend as little on marketing as possible. The second point is why it never interested me. If I have to do all of the work of building up the audience to begin with, what do I need trad pub for?

The rest of the doom and gloom ... I think we could have expected.

So many interesting tidbits copied into that article. Thanks for sharing, it's worth the read.

[LilyBLily]

Interesting that the bread-and butter earners for trad pubs are now franchise authors. Still genre, just less trend-driven.

[TimothyEllis]

Interesting breakdown of Trad publishing, and it's worse than I thought.

I think I agree with the conclusion, the Trads are going to die, but not as fast as stated. It's going to be a long slow self strangulation. One that is already well underway.

[Moved this, as it's not really about marketing, but discussing the Trad model.]

[Bill Hiatt]

There was quite a bit of discussion of the article and similar items over on Substack. (It may not be immediately obvious, but the article is, in fact, a Substack post. People can use their own domain name on Substack if they want.)

Anyway, I don't recall all of the give-and-take, but the gist was that the quotes in the article don't tell the full story.

Here's a sample of the response. https://countercraft.substack.com/p/yes-people-do-buy-books?

We all know that trad publishing has its issues, but keep in mind that the publishers quoted were involved in antitrust litigation and eager to make the best case they could for how terrible things are.

[LilyBLily]

PW spotlighted Entangled recently and I was shocked that it has moved from mostly ebook to mostly hardcover with print runs as large as 850,000 copies for Rebecca Yarros's next romantasy. Entangled is feeling quite optimistic and perhaps rightly so; apparently she is a blockbuster author, an outlier who will make everyone involved a fortune.

A prior report on Entangled in March said they're planning on printing 30,000-60,000 copies of their typical hardcovers from other authors, with a $17.99 cover price. Good print numbers, but not earthshaking, and here's why:

Returns are a key measurement of how trad publishing is going. So my question is, what is the current rate of returns for hardcovers? For trade paper? Are they trending up or down? If they're trending up, then we know the trad pub business is on rocky ground--although unlikely to fall apart anytime soon. Historically, when returns trend up, profits go down, and the publisher has to seek other revenue streams to sustain it. Sub rights, usually. Ebooks. Audiobooks. Reasons why trad pub contracts now typically are big rights grabs and an author needs a tough agent to negotiate retaining their rights or getting a fair split with the publisher. Money is still being made, and publishing is still a big gamble. But what is the trend? 

[Hopscotch]

Nope, tradpub will never die.  Indie will never die.  Writers sucking up to rich "patrons of the arts" will never die.  Nor will buying their beer and sausage w/an academic salary as they write.  Relative success of each will go up and down.  But all will survive.  We've just got to ride the waves.  Or maybe mix 'em up.   

[The Bass Bagwhan]

Aside from the aside that digital publishing is a relatively new consideration in this sort of market analysis, absolutely nothing in this article isn't old news. For a hundred years, and especially in the late 20th century, trad publishers have gambled money on books and often don't win.  Blockbuster books have always subsidised midlist authors. Celebrity tell-all books and memoirs (sporting and political in particular) have always been bafflingly popular. Huge advances have sometimes failed, "sleepers" have sometimes inexplicably been best-sellers. The amounts being paid now are 21st century, but otherwise the business model in regards to curating a publishing list is exactly the same.
Even having to promote yourself as a trad author is nothing new. You had a four-week window of care-factor from the publisher after your book hit the shelves before they moved on to the next title. Savvy authors spent all year grinding through book club meetings, speaking at any sort of event where an author might be welcome ... an old trick was offering book stores that you'd sign their store copies to give them more appeal — sounds cool, but it prevented the stores from returning those copies as "Returns".
The greatest factor in success is still luck. There are so many best sellers that publishers will admit they can't explain the popularity in comparison to a dozen identical titles.
Tradpub was very, very slow in acknowledging the digital revolution, and it did look in danger of extinction. Now it dominates it with sheer money. You can be sure that when a Big Five publisher releases a new blockbuster, it sure as hell doesn't log into the KDP dashboard. Exclusive deals and agreements are reached behind closed doors.
Trad publishing has been adapting fast. It ain't going anywhere soon. Indie publishing on the other hand is drowning in a mire of its own making. The "tsunami of crap" it was accused of 15 years is now very real.

[TimothyEllis]

Indie publishing on the other hand is drowning in a mire of its own making. The "tsunami of crap" it was accused of 15 years is now very real.

I don't really agree with that.

Amazon is a bottomless pit.

The top 500,000 books sell, and the rest just sink down the abyss, and vanish.

They poured in hundreds of thousands of low content books, and they just vanished. People are still pouring them in 3 at a time, and they still vanish. Same with Bot drek. It just vanishes. Same with short books people think will make them a fortune.

The reality is now that if your book doesn't have pre-orders, doesn't sell on day 1, or doesn't get any KU downloads on day 1, it just vanishes. And after that, if the book stops selling, it is moved down to make way for one that is.

None of them impact on those selling at all.

The top 500k is pretty stable. Amazon moves things down over time, but sales keep a book there. What fails to sell is no threat to anything selling, nor does it make it harder to find them.

Over time I expect that 500k to reach 600k, but it doesn't seem to be in a hurry.

For now, the 'mire' is basically irrelevant to people who read a lot, and who hunt the top 100 lists and back catalogues of people on them.

[Bill Hiatt]

Agreed.

The true garbage is well-hidden, and there's plenty of good indie stuff to read.

That said, I've had stuff that didn't sell on day 1 but didn't immediately disappear. I suspect that people with proven track records get a little bit more consideration. (I'm hardly a bestseller, but I'm not cranking out garbage, either.) I also notice that my new ebook submissions seem to just zip right through approval, at least on good days. The last one was up in under two hours.

[Post-Crisis D]

I guess my books are garbage because they are very well-hidden in the depths of the pit.

[Bill Hiatt]

I guess my books are garbage because they are very well-hidden in the depths of the pit.

I'm sure your books aren't garbage, but we were just talking specifically about how must a book disappears if it doesn't immediately get sales. Are you saying yours do disappear right away? That might be worth investigating if so.

I've had some that were pretty invisible. They reappear whenever they get a sale.

[Lorri Moulton]

When you say disappear...do they no longer show up in searches or just not in a top 100 category?

IMHO, another reason to have our own stores and sites, where we can link the books (including Amazon) to make it easy for readers to find them.

[Hopscotch]

Well, we the vanished can take some comfort in Herman Melville's comment to his worried father-in-law:  "...independent of my pocket, it is my earnest desire to write those sort of books which are said to ‘fail’...”

[Post-Crisis D]

If you search by my name (first and last, not just last), you can find my books.  If you search by my last name only, I only have one book on page 1.  If you search by title, they'll come up.  If you search by like anything else, you will probably never see any of my books.

That is why the idea of selling direct is more and more appealing.  If the only way that someone can find my books is via my website or any social media pages I might have, why should Amazon get a cut?

[Bill Hiatt]

If you search by my name (first and last, not just last), you can find my books.  If you search by my last name only, I only have one book on page 1.  If you search by title, they'll come up.  If you search by like anything else, you will probably never see any of my books.

That is why the idea of selling direct is more and more appealing.  If the only way that someone can find my books is via my website or any social media pages I might have, why should Amazon get a cut?

I wonder how many other people have this experience? It's been a long time since I did a general genre search and found myself--but then again, I'm not looking for myself so I might not even have noticed.

This month, over 61% of my sales are from AMS ads, if the records are to be believed. But the other ones must be coming from somewhere. I'm not seeing much effect from Substack yet, and it's been ages since I saw much from FB. My own website furnished only a few clicks to Amazon. Even if they all became sales, that doesn't sound like all of the sales are accounted for. Organic visibility of some kind is all I can think.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

When you say, "Amazon is a bottomless pit", I thought about it and decided it must be true. It's not just all the books — it's the zillion other products it lists. But sticking with the subject of books, the concept of trying to stay within that top 500K is an intriguing, different approach — a different mindset really. And trust that Amazon, dare I say ("trust" and "Amazon" not usually synonymous) does indeed dump all the rubbish to the bottom of the pit.

As for direct selling from a website, I've tried this several times and just can't get it to work well. I suspect that many readers do actually rely on the ratings and reviews that Amazon provides to trigger a decision to buy.

[Lorri Moulton]

I send everyone to my website and store, but I also have retailer links at both places.  I make it clear I don't mind if they buy from retailers. I want them to do what's best for them. 

I'll get paid (eventually) either way, but having a site and/or store gives us a chance to showcase the books a bit before they go to retailers.  I hope they've decided to get the ebook by the time they click that retailer  button.

[The Bass Bagwhan]

I send everyone to my website and store, but I also have retailer links at both places.  I make it clear I don't mind if they buy from retailers. I want them to do what's best for them. 

I'll get paid (eventually) either way, but having a site and/or store gives us a chance to showcase the books a bit before they go to retailers.  I hope they've decided to get the ebook by the time they click that retailer  button.

Totally agree, I've always liked how you can completely control the presentation of the books on your own website. No doubt, I'll be trying this approach again sometime (Einstein's definition of insanity...)

[Bill Hiatt]

I send everyone to my website and store, but I also have retailer links at both places.  I make it clear I don't mind if they buy from retailers. I want them to do what's best for them. 

I'll get paid (eventually) either way, but having a site and/or store gives us a chance to showcase the books a bit before they go to retailers.  I hope they've decided to get the ebook by the time they click that retailer  button.

Totally agree, I've always liked how you can completely control the presentation of the books on your own website. No doubt, I'll be trying this approach again sometime (Einstein's definition of insanity...)

It isn't necessarily insane. We deal with a lot of variables in self-publishing, most of which we don't have accurate stats on. Einstein was assuming someone was doing the same thing over and over with no difference in circumstances. But our circumstances are fluid.