Number One Book System = Amazon Best Seller

The possibilities of a self-published
 author are infinite and only limited
 by their own imagination.

Digital Marketer (DM) has apparently established a sure-fire way to become an Amazon Best Seller --- Its called 'Number One Book System'

DM has some pretty well respected digital/ebooks/marketing experts on their staff. Might be worth checking into.

This Digital Marketer press release from PRWeb:

How to Become an Amazon Best Seller with Number One Book System Showing the Way Topic of DigitalMarketer.com Article


Digital Marketer’s new program, the Number One Book System, is guiding writers on the path to self-publication, according to a recent online article.


Digital Marketer’s latest online article said their new Number One Book System is showing people how to become an Amazon best seller by self-publishing their own eBooks. Amazon.com is the most massive e-commerce site on the web, the article said, and eBooks are some of its main attractions. Readers are scooping up eBooks faster than authors can write them, which is why the Number One Book System is proving to be such a revolutionary program, said the article.
Using the Number One Book System gives authors the chance to start from absolute scratch and work their way towards getting a book to number one on Amazon Kindle through crafty promotion and grassroots community support, the article said. A membership in the program includes a spot in the Number One Book Club, the premier online community for e-publishers to connect and collaborate.

Kindle eBooks have officially dominated the book world since they surpassed print book sales on Amazon.com last year, said the article. The numbers are astounding, and eBooks are creating a modern technological way for readers to absorb written content. The article said record amounts of eBooks are being downloaded and read, thanks to Amazon’s vast collection of book-hungry customers.

A recent press release from Amazon.com told the rest of the story:

“Amazon.com today announced that its catalog of over 180,000 exclusive Kindle books have been purchased, downloaded, or borrowed from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library more than 100 million times,” it said.

Capturing the flow of the mighty eBook river is a no-brainer, said the online article, and that’s what Digital Marketer wants to convey with its Number One Book System. The program isn’t just a how-to, it’s a comprehensive collection of the most useful tips and tricks that can manage a best-selling eBook’s performance over the long haul.

With the community-based cooperative of the Number One Book Club, writers will have endless support and assistance in writing, reviewing, and promoting their books in any and every category imaginable. The club gives members the ability to break into groups and allows for forum-style communication so like-minded people can work together towards their Kindle goals.

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The Ghosts of Publishing Future

The Ghosts of Publishing
Future - Guess Who?

Another intriguing true story about a self-publisher. One that addresses the question: Is formal editing necessary for the success of a book? Or, does money trump quality?

This from Anna Baddeley of The Guardian: 

Ebooks: why it pays to self-publish

Their books may not be of the highest quality, but self-published authors such as Rachel Abbott are the trade's hottest property

At last year's London Book Fair, a well-respected publisher confessed to running away from self-published authors at parties. Everyone laughed. After all, the writer who dares go it alone is one of the last acceptable victims of literary snobbery.

British author Rachel Abbott, whose DIY debut, Only the Innocent, is currently riding high in the Amazon Kindle charts, presumably couldn't give a fig about all that. She claims to have turned down a publishing deal "because it didn't feel right". Since her success, she's been besieged by agents, who must be salivating at the thought of a ready-made fanbase. It will be interesting to see if Abbott gives into temptation and follows the example of fellow Kindle star Kerry Wilkinson, a sports journalist from Lancashire who has signed a six-book deal with Macmillan, and US author Amanda Hocking, who made a fortune from her self-published paranormal novels before signing with the same publisher. In an interview in January, Hocking sounded relieved to have at last received some help with the editing process. "It drove me nuts, because I tried really hard to get things right and I just couldn't. It's exhausting."

Just how hard becomes clear a few sentences into Only the Innocent. Abbott's whodunnit about the murder of a man with a fetish for red-haired women is entertaining enough, but it's crying out for a second pair of eyes.

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How About Some Final Stats for 2011 Publishing

Print or Digital, books are still books

My last post was on some publishing trends for 2012.

Let's now take a look into some final analytical numbers for 2011 publishing ... What the hell is the state of the union RE publishing, anyway?

The following is a cross post from my Publishing/Writing: Insights, News, Intrigue Blog:

Did the Book Industry Take it on the Chin in 2011? Inside Some Numbers


It’s really hard to tell by the analytical parameters that the old book industry trackers (such as Nielsen BookScan) has set up to take the measurements. BookScan doesn’t even track e-books yet! What the hell are they waiting for? You have to get e-book numbers through other sources such as the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

Let me say now that books are books … regardless of the media they are presented in. And they should be included in any analysis of the overall health of the book publishing industry.

But, this bit of industry analytical dabbling in the following article from Crain’s New York Business by Matthew Flamm does provide an interesting insight:

No happy ending for book industry

Book sales in 2011 dropped 9% overall, with mass market paperbacks seeing the biggest declines. Adult hardcovers—the industry’s biggest moneymaker—saw a 10% drop.

The book industry took it on the chin in 2011, though e-book sales continue to offer the promise of better times to come.

Through Dec. 25, total unit sales of physical books fell 9% to 640.6 million, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks 75% of the market. That compares to a drop of 4% in 2010, and 3% in 2009.

Some categories were hit particularly hard. Sales of mass market paperbacks, a category that has been hurting for years, fell 23% to 82.2 million copies. More troubling, perhaps, was the 10% drop, to 164.1 million units, in the adult hardcover category, which is the industry’s biggest moneymaker. Trade paperbacks proved the most resilient of the major formats, with a 6% sales decline, to 351 million copies.

Among subject groups, adult fiction suffered the most, with an 18% plunge to sales of 160.3 million copies. Commercial fiction tends to sell particularly well as e-books. Adult non-fiction was down 10%, to 263 million copies.

(John’s Note: By the way, how many know the definitions of (or differences between) the following categories: adult fiction, commercial fiction, mass market paperbacks, trade paperbacks, adult hardcover?)

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E-Book Publishing Trends in 2012

In 2011 digital publishing outgrew its pants almost every week it seemed.

Well, hang on to your asses because 2012 e-book maturation and development will be even more explosive!

And e-book pricing ... which has become the big white elephant in the room ... will focus more on individual true content value and quality and not be subject to a preconceived price for e-books as a whole.

This then is from Laura Hazard Owen on PaidContent.org (The Economics of Digital Content):

What’s Coming In 2012: Book Publishing

This is the second in a series of posts over the next week that will highlight key people, companies and trends to watch in 2012 in the sectors we cover most, from publishing to legal, and from mobile to advertising.



2011 was a busy and eventful year in book publishing—but 2012 promises to be even more so, as various issues that started bubbling up in ‘11 shift and mature. Here are three predictions.

Amazon and Barnes & Noble make a deal, sort of: As Amazon becomes a full-fledged publisher, it has not yet dealt with its bookstore distribution problem. For now, bricks-and-mortar bookstores are still an important place of discovery of new titles. While some have argued that Amazon will simply ignore these bookstores, that the company always takes a long-term strategy and that it won’t care if it misses some physical store sales, I think the company’s recent beefing-up of its force of sales reps suggests it does consider bricks-and-mortar stores at least somewhat significant for now. And with the company publishing books by more high-profile authors like Tim Ferriss and Penny Marshall, readers will be looking for those books in stores.

While a few indies have said they’ll be reluctant to carry Amazon books, Barnes & Noble has said straight out that it won’t carry Amazon titles in print in stores if it can’t also sell them as e-books. I predict that Amazon will offer a select number of new titles, in both print and digital formats, to Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS). The arrangement will probably be less than ideal for Barnes & Noble in some way, because I think Amazon will try to find a way to use Barnes & Noble stores as showrooms while still directing buyers to Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN). Maybe Amazon will set high list prices on all of its own new digital titles (it’s already done this with its upcoming Tim Ferriss book), while continuing to sell those books at major discounts in the Kindle store.

E-book pricing will shift to quality-focused debates: The e-book pricing debate up to now has generally focused on the idea that all e-books should cost the same and that all should be priced low. But why should a self-published or mass market thriller necessarily cost the same as a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in e-book form? It doesn’t make sense to me to say that all e-books should cost $9.99 or less.

I am not the only one who thinks this, even though most commenters hated my $9.99 e-books post. Author John Scalzi recently announced that he’ll delete those comments on his blog “in which the focus…is how you don’t like the price of the e-book.” He writes:

"I think it’s important to understand that eBooks are not special snowflakes; they’re just books in electronic form. As someone who prefers to read in eBook form, you are not substantially different from someone who prefers hardcovers, or trade paperbacks, or mass market paperbacks. If someone who preferred paperbacks (or at the very least paperback pricing) showed up on my site on a regular basis to whine and moan about how books should always be priced at that paperback level, on a comment thread that is meant to be on another subject entirely, I would find them tiresome too. Books: They have variable price points! Based on release dates, consumer interest and format, among many other factors!"

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Independent Booksellers Reluctant to Carry Amazon Titles in Stores

More intrigue (and actual gossip) RE Amazon's publishing imprints :)

Seems the bricks-and-mortar indy bookstores are bucking selling the Amazon publishing printed versions.

Publishers Weekly says Amazon’s “fast-growing [publishing] group had an outsized impact on the industry.”

But, research seems to indicate that Amazon Publishing has not had an outsized impact on the industry ... in fact their numbers as reported by Nielsen BookScan are quite lackluster.

These details by Laura Hazard Owen in mocoNews.net:

The Truth About Amazon Publishing, Part II


In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) says it will double the number of original titles it publishes next year, to 400, and add more imprints, including a couple in New York. Much more interesting is what the company doesn’t say in that interview—and those omissions reflect the difficulties I explored in “The Truth About Amazon Publishing” last month.


Seth Godin Is Forgotten; Print Sales Are Poor: Publishers Weekly lists Amazon Publishing’s five top sellers in 2011, “in both e-book and print” (i.e., I think, in those formats combined): The Hangman’s Daughter; A Scattered Life; Elizabeth Street; Easily Amused; and Alison Wonderland.

SEE ALSO: The Truth About Amazon Publishing

Now, wait a sec. I checked the print sales numbers for each Amazon Publishing title last month, using Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of hardcover and paperback sales (including print sales on Amazon). Here, according to BookScan, are Amazon’s top 5 print bestsellers in 2011 (I verified these titles’ BookScan numbers this morning):

1. The Hangman’s Daughter (imprint: AmazonEncore): 28,467 copies sold in print

2. Poke the Box (imprint: Seth Godin’s The Domino Project): 24,883 copies

3. Do the Work (imprint: The Domino Project): 8,933 copies

4. AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (Imprint: Amazon Encore): 6,000 copies

5. Anything You Want (imprint: The Domino Project): 5,920 copies

Three of these are Domino Project titles and that only The Hangman’s Daughter is listed as a top seller in the PW article. Here are the print sales for the titles PW lists as Amazon Publishing’s bestsellers:

1. The Hangman’s Daughter: 28,467 copies sold in print

2. Elizabeth Street: 1,073 copies

3. Easily Amused: 681 copies*

4. A Scattered Life: 629 copies*

5. Alison Wonderland: 205 copies

*These books are sold in Sam’s Club, which does not report sales to BookScan; their sales are likely higher than the BookScan numbers.

Some thoughts here:


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'Library Journal' Says E-Book Lending is Exploding

Public libraries initially dipped their toes into digital lending several years ago on PC's and e-readers ... Now they are upping their game and getting into the mobiles: smartphones and tablet computers. Apps are beginning to flow!

The popularity of these devices has created a downpour of new demand for digital lending.

Reporter Roger Yu gets into some interesting growth statistics and projections in this insightful article for USA Today:

Libraries ramp up e-book lending

Libraries nationwide are finding more ways to go mobile.

After a tentative foray into digital lending on PCs and e-readers several years ago, public libraries are opening the next chapter for smartphones and tablet computers.


The movement kicked into high gear in September when Amazon finally turned on its Kindle for 11,000 local libraries, triggering a flood of new users. App developers are also working with libraries to enable book lovers to borrow on their smartphones.

"With more devices for consumers to try, they're going to get better," says Christopher Platt of the New York Public Library. "And the e-reading experience will get better."

The evolution is playing out amid some challenges, including an ongoing squabble between eager-to-grow libraries and publishers that fear copyright infringement and losing money on digital distribution, their fastest-growing segment of business.

Some large publishers — such as Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hatchette — refuse to sell to libraries, thus limiting the availability of popular titles.

Still, customers' appetite for e-book lending is growing unabated. According to Library Journal, public libraries increased their offerings by 185% this year. E-books will account for 8% of their materials budget in five years, it says.

The New York Public Library has quadrupled its e-book budget since 2009 and plans to spend $1 million this year, Platt says. The Seattle Public Library's e-book circulation grew by 92% in 2010, says Kirk Blankenship, its electronic resources librarian.

Some new developments will accelerate the growth pace. Among them:

•Kindle agreement. Unlike the rival Barnes & Noble Nook or Sony Reader, Amazon has refused to play ball with libraries on its Kindle until a few weeks ago.

When Amazon finally did e-book lending on the Kindle and app, the rocket in circulation was quick, says Mary Dempsey of the Chicago Public Library. The New York and Seattle library systems say their e-book lending has risen by more than 30% since Kindle's agreement.

•Smartphone options. Reading options for smartphones and tablet computers are emerging quickly. Kindle's app works on both Apple's devices and the Android operating system.

Overdrive, a large e-book distributor for libraries, released its app for e-books. It has seen over 2 million downloads since its release late last year. In a trial, 3M, another e-book distributor, will install a kiosk next month at several libraries for browsing e-books. Customers read using 3M's library app.

•Library apps. Some libraries are considering their own apps. Douglas County Libraries in Colorado is on tap to be the first in the country with its own app.

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Monitoring E-Book Trends Internationally

If publishers could quickly research e-book growth in other countries ... such as Europe, Asia, Australia, North and South America ... based on digital device adoption, attitudes, and purchasing habits of e-book consumers, they would have a gold- mine of a service. A real mother load to help them make timely business decisions and maximize market share in developing countries.

The Bowker Company, you know - the one who assigns the ISBN's, but which is also one of the book industries leading business intelligence researchers, is about to instigate an annual report that monitors e-book trends internationally ... thereby providing that subject book intelligence goldmine :)

From PRWEb.com:

Bowker Launches International e-Book Monitor

Comprehensive survey on four continents will track e-book growth and consumer attitudes giving publishing industry hard data on a dynamic new format

Bowker, the leading provider of market research information and business intelligence on book markets in the U.S., through BML Bowker, in the U.K., will launch a major study that will assess and track device adoption, attitudes, and purchasing habits of e-book consumers in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North and South America. The study, commencing in January 2012 and repeating annually, will enable comparisons between e-book markets in countries experiencing different growth patterns and arm the publishing industry with a comprehensive range of qualitative and quantitative data.


“Being able to track the growth rates of e-books on a global level as countries make the shift to digital books is significant,” said Kelly Gallagher, vice-president of publishing services for Bowker. “This landmark effort will provide the international publishing industry with key metrics in understanding digital opportunities as they emerge.”

The project will map the current state of e-book use and acceptance around the world, creating a benchmark from which to track trends during subsequent studies. The research will target representative samples from the U.K., U.S., Germany, France, Spain, India, Australia, Brazil, South Korea and Japan. Consumers from these countries will be surveyed on their purchases of digital content versus traditional formats in multiple settings and contexts. The study will also explore the use and ownership of devices, from dedicated e-book readers to tablets.

The e-book monitor will be supported by key international publishing industry participants, who will have a unique opportunity to collaborate on the creation of the survey instrument and provide expertise in the interpretation of the results.

“We are delighted that the key organizations we identified to work with us on this project are on board, representing as they do different perspectives on the industry and offering a wealth of experience that will help provide valuable context for this study,” said Jo Henry, Managing Director of BML Bowker.

The list includes A.T. Kearney, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), Pearson and Tata Consultancy Services.

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Book Buyers Shifting from Culture of “Ownership” to Culture of “Access”

The future of the printed book is looking more dire than ever. The increases in the percentages RE digital book sales have surpassed all expectations...this has fostered a shift in consumers culture of book ownership to book content access.

What the hell, access to digital IS ALSO ownership, though, is it not? You have to pay for that access; and you can always convert it to print (for those who still desire).

Me thinks people make far too much brouhaha over written content formats...

I have posted often before that I feel the printed book will never go away completely...and it won't...It just will not be the only kid on the block anymore AND it will wear a different suit of cloths (a different business model for getting into print and distributed).

These interesting details on The Future of Books provided by L. K. Sharma in the Business Standard: 

As the great new digital wave dawns upon them, publishers ponder over the challenges and opportunities.

The London Book Fair last year was held under the shadow of the volcanic ash. This time it was gripped by existential fears about the future of the printed book and of the fair’s venue, Earls Court exhibition centre, which faces demolition and development. The dire forecasts of the death of the printed book and the physical book shop were dismissed by some experts who tried to calm the fears sparked by two ‘e’ words — ‘e-publishing’ and ‘e-retailing’. The developing e-environment in publishing has excited the device and platform developers and the digital natives. This in turn made the publishers talk of new “challenges and opportunities”.


A related issue that is more likely to be discussed by an NGO rather than at an industry fair is whether the people could let their digital future be controlled by powerful corporations. Ordinary book readers also have stakes on how the digital publishers’ dispute with public libraries will be resolved. In the US, library e-book downloads have been shooting up and some digital publishers are refusing to sell to libraries.

The tipping point
The future of the printed book and of independent booksellers has been a topic of seminars for some years but this time experts at the fair agreed that the tipping point has been reached. E-books have arrived. One-third of publishers say they would get more than 10 per cent of revenue from e-books next year. As a result of the advances in digital and communication technologies and the appearance of new platforms and devices, e-books already account for 10 per cent of the book sales in the US. That country now boasts of 40 million e-readers and many of them come in the category of core readers — those who buy more than 12 books a year. Some e-books had a 50 per cent share of total sales during the first few months of publication. Thus a US publishing executive did not hesitate to call it “a watershed moment for the trade”. A British executive referred to the decline of physical book retailing. In Britain, e-books account for 5 per cent of book sales but the latest research shows that it will also see exponential growth in the number of people buying e-books. What the US does today, some countries are bound to do tomorrow.

Some turmoil in the book business has also been caused by the growing stronghold of the mega retail chains and the overall decline in the book sales because of the current economic situation. Individual booksellers have been hit hard. The trend of the closure of distinctive small bookshops has accelerated so much that many towns in Britain will be left without any bookshop. It is not that the mega chains can rest on their laurels. With heavy book buyers preferring to buy digitally, even their brick-and-mortar outlets are under siege. Borders of America could not survive in the UK. Ottakar’s, James Thin and Dillon chain have disappeared from the British high street, though Waterstone’s is still in business, holding on to some 30 per cent of the book market.

Naturally, the thought of future haunted the book fair participants. Companies tried to buy and sell future. Many participants were keen to attend workshops and seminars on FutureBook! The Digital Pavilion attracted larger audiences than the Russian book market on which the fair had focused this time. The optimists tried to boost the morale by talking up the market but it was hard not to notice the undercurrent of anxiety.

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Are E-Book's Surging Sales Damaging Print Sales?

I don't think so...at least not as much as you might think...The e-book sales are up 115% over last year and the print sales ARE down...but kind of negligibly.

Now don't get me wrong, e-books have had an impact, but I feel most of the e-book sales growth have actually come from new reader-consumers that have had their interest in reading tweaked for the first time by the new digital gadgets (and this is a great thing!).

Now there are all kinds of reasons for this downturn in print sales. The biggest and most overlooked one is the economy being in the dump (print books cost more)...But, I believe that printing, paper, binding, distribution, etc. are in for some tech improvements, also, that will lower their costs in the near future. This will be a boon for those that still prefer a physical, 3-dimensional book to curl up with.

Then, too, all the newly-awakened readers (you know, the tech-savvy and e-reader indoctrinated bots) might just want to jump into a 3-dimensional physicality in the future!

So, I'm predicting a print book resurge around the corner.

Audrey Watters of ReadWriteWeb.com has this to say:

E-Books Sales Up 115%, But Does It Come At the Expense of Print?

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released its figures from January 2011 book sales, and the news echoes what we've come to expect: more readers are turning to e-books, and they're doing so in droves. In face, e-book sales have more than doubled since the same time last year. According to the AAP, e-book sales are up 115.8%, from $32.4 million to $69.9 million year-over-year.

But how does that impact the rest of the publishing industry? Do more e-book sales mean more books are being sold? Are e-readers and iPads engaging a new audience of readers (or at least book buyers)? Or are consumers simply making the switch from print to digital?

According to the AAP figures, the growth in e-book sales didn't save the industry from declining sales. But the drop in sales overall was small - just 1.9% - as total book sales across all platforms and across all categories fell from $821.5 million in January 2010 to $805.7 million in January of this year.

More interesting, however, the breakdown in those sales: the adult mass market paperback section fell the most, declining over 30%. Adult paperbacks dropped almost 20%. Adult hardcover sales fell 11%. Children's hardcover and paperback sales fell, too - 2% and 17.7% respectively. Altogether, the drop in sales of these two key elements of the publishing industry amounted to a $50 million decline.

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E-Books Outsell Paperback Books on Amazon

E-books and e-book pricing are on the fast track. It is estimated that e-book sales will reach over two billion (that's with a "b" not a "m") by 2013, up from 313 million in 2009 (Yankee Group research firm).

Mach speed, indeed, best defines e-book growth!

And this is good for business owners, as well as writers and authors, as it presents an opportunity for business types to offer a value added service (published books, journals, papers about their products and services) to their clients across many retailer sites and platforms while making extra income simultaneously.

But writers/authors are uniquely benefited in that e-books and their ease of publication have busted down the constrictive city walls of traditional publishing and exposed the wide open publishing prairie to go write and play in, so to speak.

This from Mike Phillips of Website Magazine:

E-books Becoming Big Business

Research firm Yankee Group estimates that the U.S. e-book market will reach $2.7 billion in sales in 2013, up from just $313 million in 2009. That's good for a growth rate of 83 percent, above even paid mobile apps, at 72 percent.

Already, Amazon claims that Kindle e-books now outsell paperback books on Amazon.com. This is great news for authors but they are not the only ones who can benefit. One of the advantages of e-books is the efficiency in which they can be published. Websites such as LuLu.com and CreateSpace.com (Amazon) make it quite easy to publish an e-book across multiple retailer sites on any topic. For business owners, this presents an opportunity to offer yet another added value to their customers and even add revenue along the way.

Expertise in any industry can be used to create an e-book in short order, then sell that material or use it as a promotional or cross-sell incentive. Amazon recently announced Kindle Singles - e-books in the range of 5,000-30,000 words. This could mean publishing white papers, how-to's or even re-packaging a series of blog posts around a particular topic as an e-book. Kindle Singles are currently selling anywhere from $0.99-$2.99, in most cases. Amazon typically takes 30 percent of each sale.

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Bookstores Will Survive--But NOT in Superstore Mode

I always deeply suspected that bookstores would never disappear. You see, while completely new technology is exploding the digital publishing business and e-books, guess what? That same technology, and some morphed from it, has leaked over into the print industry as well, resulting in faster and more cost-effective production costs in POD (print-on-demand), improved paper and inking, delivery, etc.

I further suspect that a whole parallel "printed-word tech world", still in it's forced-infancy, will blossom and produce some future, mind-boggling results.

Although bookstores will never disappear completely, the old superstore model will...The surviving bookstores will be locally defined and driven...just like the old neighborhood bar & grille.

Jim Milliot, co-editorial director of Publishers Weekly, has this to say:

Digital Book World: Publishing CEOs Optimistic About the Future

The five publishing executives who took part on Digital Book World’s CEO panel Tuesday morning all agreed that while the industry is undergoing unprecedented changes, their companies are moving to adapt to new realities. Their view was consistent with a survey contacted by James McQuivey of Forrester Research that found 83% of publishing executives believed their company is capable of managing the digital transition.

McQuivey presented highlights of the study just before the CEO panel Tuesday, which also found that 80% of execs believe their staffs will need retraining to compete effectively in the digital marketplace. McQuivey also presented some research findings, including the estimate that consumers spend $1 billion on e-books in 2010, a figure that should reach at least $1.3 billion in 2011. The consensus among those surveyed was that e-books would comprise half of all trade book units by 2014, and 53% said they expected print sales to decrease this year.

The CEOs agreed that they face many challenges, but said there are many opportunities as well. Jane Friedman, CEO of Open Road Integrated Media and former CEO of HarperCollins, said the industry is “vitale and vibrant,” adding that at no point in her career as she seen such change and that things will never go back to the way they were. “It’s the end of the beginning”of the digital transition, Friedman said. Macmillan’s COO said publishing is entering a “golden age,” but added that the question is will it be a golden age for publishers. He noted that unlike some other media industries, publishers have been handed a great gift--millions of devices in the hands of readers that provides publishers the opportunity to create new products. The publishers that prosper, Napck said, will be those that adopt the new skill sets needed to publish in a new marketplace.

While many questions loom over the creation and delivery of digital content, the immediate question confronting publishers in what is happening in the distribution of print books, Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt said. With the number of bookstores shrinking, publishers will need to find new ways to allow consumers to discover books, Napack said. Just putting books in Amazon is not marketing, he said, adding that publishers will need to more effectively use social media to promote their titles. Hyatt warned that social media can’t be treated as a broadcast medium, but rather needs a targeted message.

Most panelists agreed that the downsizing of the bookstore chains meant that independent booksellers have a chance to mount something of a comeback. Napack said that while independent booksellers’ market share will remain relatively small, their role in bringing books to market will increase in importance. And while there will be fewer bookstores in the future, Napack said he believes there will always be physical bookstores.

Panelists also touched on e-book pricing, with all agreeing with Friedman’s statement that “free is not a business model, it’s a marketing model.” While the “post-agency” e-book price seems to have settled around $9.99, Napack expected there will be a range of prices moving forward. Hyatt observed it would be “mindless” to settle on one price.

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Random House and Marketing Books Directly to Consumers

When you know who is looking for something to download, you can make suggestions directly to that person! Right on. AND, when you know that the download device is a new eReader, you know what that person wants...EBOOKS!

Simple enough concept, even for me.

Well, Random House has used this simple concept to come up with a delightful, functional and FREE marketing device for the holidays helpful to us consumers.

Julie Bosman, New York Times, has the details:

A Christmas Morning Spree

This year, the book publishing industry has its own version of Black Friday or Cyber Monday. It’s called Christmas Day.

On that day, hundreds of thousands of consumers are expected to unwrap new e-readers that they received as gifts, and quickly begin downloading books to read.

Random House, the publisher of Stieg Larsson, John Grisham and Stephen Sondheim, is hoping to be there to make a few suggestions. It has prepared a free e-book, “The eBook Insider,” that is full of recommendations, reviews and book excerpts directed squarely at consumers who have just received e-readers.

“With so many people receiving an e-reader for the first time on Christmas, one of the things they’re going to want to do is go looking for the books they want to read,” said Anne Messitte, the publisher of Vintage/Anchor, a division of Random House. “And we think it’s an ideal moment to really begin helping a reader curate the collection of e-books that they want.”

Unlike the traditional holiday book advertising that takes place in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the promotion for “The eBook Insider” is scheduled to begin on Dec. 25, first with social media messaging and then with Google ads and also print ads in The New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker.

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Authors Have Real Power in the Wylie/Random House Fiasco

Let's talk, again - but from a different perspective, about the Wylie literary agency entering the publishing business with their Odessey Editions e-book publishing deal with Amazon.

The air is thick with high-stakes suspense and intrigue in the publishing world!

And what is at stake in this standoff?...Publishing rights, that's what. And who initially owns ALL rights? Neither the agents nor the publishers! The authors (creators) do. So, it seems to me they are the ones who hold the true position of power...And authors are the one common denominator with both publishers and agents and the entity that drives their money-making capability!

So, why is all the publicity and hoopla concerned with Random House and Wylie and only secondarily with the authors they both supposedly "represent"?

I'll tell you why, because writers are not organized as well as a business industry/force to be reckoned with. Oh, there's the Authors Guild, but they are weak as water and came out with a statement RE the Wylie/RH fiasco to this affect:

"publishers have brought this on themselves.” ...Well, DUH!

The only thing at odds here is who owns the digital publishing rights before they came into existence. The authors owns ALL rights to their work unless they sell or contract them to others...And they cannot sell or contract any right that does not exist at the time of the contract or transaction.

I suggest all authors go back and review the exact wording in contracts with their agents and publishers and between their agents and publishers...I think they will find they can sell this new publishing right to whomever they desire.

Read this insightful article: Agent vs. Publisher: Could the Andrew Wylie/Random House stand-off happen in Canada? by Mark Medley in the Canadian National Post

E-books Sales Up - Print Books Maintaining

Another view that puts print books in proper perspective...They are still a strong force.

Bob Hoover , of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, writes this intuitive piece that points out some figures that are sometimes ignored or forgotten:

Amazon, the online retailer, has been selling its Kindle digital book reader for nearly three years now, one of a handful of these electronic devices, including the recent Apple iPad that combines a bunch of "applications" that the other digital readers lack.

Despite the makers' suggestions that the device will make the old-fashioned print book extinct, it seems clear, for some time to come, at least, that these "appliances" are alternatives to books, not replacements.

My two-week experience with a Kindle last year convinced me that it's fine for reading straightforward narrative fiction and nonfiction while traveling, but it's a cold, impersonal experience for a "dinosaur" like myself, not raised on computer screens.

And, it's the screen itself that limits the eyes from roaming around unlike a standard book with its two-page view, as though you are inhabiting the story rather than getting it in restricted chunks.

No matter. E-book readers are selling well. Apple said last week it had sold 3.27 million iPads since April. Amazon said Kindle sales have tripled. Sony chimed in as well, claiming to have scored 10 million book sales at its online download store.

What boosted those sales was price cuts. Barnes & Noble sells a Nook model for $149; Amazon dropped the Kindle from $259 to $189 recently.

Amazon raised the level of its aggressive marketing strategy last week when it announced that e-book sales have surpassed print book totals on its website.

"Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books," the company said.

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO, called the event "the tipping point" for digital books, meaning his company's digital-book department and its Kindle.

Perhaps we should place that claim into perspective.

As Michael Cader of the trade observer Publishers Lunch pointed out, sales of print books last year were 205 million, a number that must reduce digital book numbers to insignificance at this point -- if we had those figures, but Amazon won't provide specific numbers, either for book or Kindle sales.

Read more http://alturl.com/dsbfw

Big-Name Authors Sign Directly with E-book Retailers

Is big publishing getting the boot ?

At first, lesser-known and newbie authors were signing with E-book retailers; but now big-name authors are joining the trend and by-passing the middleman traditional publishers and signing directly with eBook retailers like Amazon, Smashwords and other companies !

More and more established authors are signing on the digital, multi-media publishing bandwagon...The latest is Ryu Murakami, author of Coin Locker Babies among others.

This report from the Wall Street Journal by Yoree Koh goes into more detail:

Ever since the arrival of the slim and snazzy electronic book devices, the magnates of the traditional publishing industry have feared the worst: that precious big-name authors might sign directly with e-book retailers, relegating the old-school publishers as the dispensable middleman.

Let the nightmare begin. Novelist Ryu Murakami plans to release his latest novel exclusively for digital bookworms through Apple Inc.’s iPad ahead of the print version. Mr. Murakami, the acclaimed author of over 15 novels including “Coin Locker Babies” and “In the Miso Soup”, replaced the publishers with a software company to help develop the e-book titled “A Singing Whale,” or “Utau Kujira” in Japanese. The digital package will include video content and set to music composed by Academy Award winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, according to the Japanese business daily Nikkei. The newspaper reports the e-book will cost 1,500 yen ($17) and will be ready to download pending Apple’s approval. Apple Japan and Mr. Murakami did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

Mr. Murakami’s decision is the latest step taken by well known authors in re-writing the business model of the publishing industry – but it’s a step beyond what others have done. In April, the master penman of suspense, Stephen King, released the e-book edition of his newest work “Blockade Billy” one month before the hardcover version published by Scribner, an imprint of New York publishing giant Simon and Schuster, hit retail outlets in the U.S. and Canada. Mr. King also published a story, UR, exclusively for Kindle, the popular e-book reader produced by Amazon, around the time a newer version of the device was released in February 2009.

In December of last year, Amazon scored another success when business guru Steven Covey granted the online retailer exclusive e-book rights for two of his best-selling books for one year. Until recently, Mr. Covey’s move to shift older titles, also known as backlist titles – the warehouse of past best-selling books with strong staying power that provide publishers a steady revenue stream each year – to the digital sphere has been the more common rebellion among successful wordsmiths. Brazilian writer Paul Coehlo and the estate of the late American novelist William Styron also moved the rights to sell e-book editions of older works to Amazon.

But in offering fresh material only in an electronic format, Mr. Murakami’s plan has basically removed the traditional book publisher from the calculation entirely. Mr. Murakami’s past novels have been published by venerated Japanese companies like Kodansha. The company wasn’t immediately available for comment. The new equation, in theory, would give authors a bigger chunk of royalties. Mr. Murakami said his initial goal of 5,000 downloads would cancel out the investment costs, and if the plan is approved, Apple will receive 30% of the revenue with the rest to be parsed among Mr. Murakami, Mr. Sakamoto and the software company, according to the Nikkei.

UPDATE, 14:05 p.m. JST: Kodansha, Murakami’s publisher responds, saying it’s talking to the novelist about releasing a hard copy version of “A Singing Whale”, though nothing has been finalized.

Read this post in Japanese/日本語訳はこちら≫

Current Rapid and Predicted E-books Growth Will Force Publishing Changes

The eBook explosion will indeed force "big publishing" industry changes...and at the forefront will be the expulsion of entrenched bad leadership...which I feel has gotten worse over the past 30 years or so...

As reported by Reuters and published in the Economic Times:

Stieg Larsson copycats take note: The slow rise of electronic books is paving the way for more safe-bet fiction blockbusters and serial-type books, at least in the short term, according to some book experts.

With book sales stagnating in recent years, the nascent e-books market has thrown the industry into turmoil. In response, large publishers are taking fewer financial risks and betting more of their dollars on established authors, said Eileen Gittins of self-publishing company Blurb.com.

John's Note: Hell, "big publishing" has been doing this for the past 25 years...long before the emergence of eBooks!

"In the face of these economics, publishers just cannot take the risk," said Gittins. "They need some sure wins."

John's Note: The hell they do...they stacked the deck for sure wins years ago! Mostly at the expense of new writers and creators. Traditional publishers haven't taken a risk in so long they've forgotten how to spell the word. Their excessive greed is why they won't or can't adapt to the new business models...Traditional publishing days are over and good riddance.

Similar to movie studios' betting on well-known franchises to bring box office gold, Gittins said publishers want to market more blockbuster authors writing serial books featuring a distinctive leading character to lure repeat readers, as was seen with the success of prolific, late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, or crime fiction writers such as Michael Connelly.

With prices on the fledging e-book market still being battled over among larger publishers and makers of electronic readers, publishers still have yet to profit much from e-books, with the lower priced e-books eating into profit margins.

The e-book market has grown rapidly with wholesale revenue from e-book sales in the United States increasing to $91 million in the first quarter of 2010 from $55.9 million from the last quarter of 2009, according to International Digital Publishing Forum. But e-book sales still only account for 5-6 per cent of overall US book sales and less than 1 per cent in Britain, The Financial Times reported this week.

Contrary to popular opinion, most of publishers' costs are developing and marketing authors, not the cost of printing and shipping books. Such costs don't lessen with e-books even though they sell for less than paper books, Gittins said.

John's Note: Oh, so NOW the old printing, binding and shipping costs were nothing? Pure BS...The marketing of authors has ALWAYS been a core mission of publishing, one they gave up on years ago when they put this burden on the author himself (this is why they haven't made good money on new writers)...This single act of abdicating core mission responsibilities was, in my opinion, the beginning of the end for traditional publishing.

Remember, good writers can learn publishing (especially today with new technology) easier than publishers can learn to be good writers!

That heightens pressure "to need to do blockbuster big titles because now there is even more pressure on them," said Gittins. "They are not really saving money with the e-book, all those costs are still there."

Book experts predict in the e-book market, bestselling authors will remain popular in the short term. According to Amazon, all three of Stieg Larsson's books, which include sensation "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," sit in the top five best-selling books on Amazon's Kindle reader.

Customer favorites for e-books include "great Summer reads" such as Stephenie Meyer's new novella.

Daily Beast book editor Lucas Wittmann said in five years e-book sales could reach levels to make up for lost paper book sales, but for now publishers are feeling the pinch.

"There is a big squeeze right now," said Wittmann. "All the great predictions for e-books haven't quite been realized yet. E-books are growing at an astounding rate but they are not yet making up for the lost (book) sales."

When e-books first hit the market, some nonfiction economic and political books fared well, but now as the e-book audience had widened, more fiction is selling, he said.

"Publishers are still experimenting," Wittmann added.

Publishers Weekly Editorial Director Jim Milliot said online sites such as Amazon.com encourage readers to buy the same author, while smaller publishers were slow on e-books.

"A lot of the independent publishers have been slower to move to put their titles on, mainly because they don't have the resources to do it," he said. "Fiction seems to be winning out, at least in the early going."

As electronic readers improve, the type of e-books that sell well could change. Improving graphics could help genres like nonfiction and children's books become more popular.

"The possibilities seem to be opening up for more graphic work, incorporating multimedia and embedding links to audio when you are reading a biography of Bach or something," Wittmann said, predicting such advances in a year or two.

Wittmann said there will still be some "pain in the industry" but diversity and change was coming.

"Most publishers...are warming to e-books and thinking creatively about them," he said. "The only question is the time frame ... when we see a truly dramatic shift."

Publishing Execs STILL Confused About Future

BookExpo America's (BEA's) first two days has pointed out confusion among publishing executives and those of peripheral businesses!...So, what's new? Publishing Executives sit on top of a historically hodge-podge industry that sort of came together in a subjective, patch-work structure and this is the environment in which these current execs learned their trade...

So, it's only natural that confusion reigns (when this fragile structure shifts) and a lack of some semblance of unified leadership is missing when trying to absorb and adapt to a changed publishing environment. I do believe, in my heart of hearts, that a unified approach will eventually be arrived at resulting in new business models that produce better margins for all.

Sarah Weinman , publishing industry reporter for the DailyFinance, gives this report on the spirited forums at the BEA:

Book Expo America, the publishing industry's annual trade show, kicked off yesterday morning with a lively, wide-ranging panel discussion featuring several top executives. Penguin (PSO) CEO David Shanks was there, as was Ingram CEO Skip Pritchard, American Booksellers Association CEO Oren Teicher, Workman publisher Bob Miller, and literary agency ICM co-president Esther Newberg. Scott Turow, recently named president of the Authors Guild and bestselling author of Presumed Innocent and Innocent, also sat on the panel, which sought to make some sense of the fast-changing industry. And as is typical of such panels, the consensus turned out to be that there wasn't much of a consensus about anything. But there were fireworks!

Farrar, Straus and Giroux publisher Jonathan Galassi set the early tone with prepared remarks expressing amazement at just how quickly change has come over the last five years. Now, with digital sales accounting for up to 10% of the market for trade books (fiction, narrative non-fiction and business books), Galassi said that "education is precisely what we need."

The proceedings got off to a heated start as Newberg, Galassi and Shanks sparred over issues related to royalties (agents and publishers tend to think differently about such things), and how they might shift in the e-book era.

Miller, who recently tried a more experimental approach to publishing with HarperStudio's low-advance/ equal profit share model before bolting for Workman, meanwhile believes the downward pressure on book pricing by the influx of cheaper-priced e-books will "kiss goodbye" the $27 price point for a hardcover, and that even the prospect of compromise won't change this: I don't think we can sit and decide" pricing as a group.Teicher was all about compromise -- because to admit that there can't be one is to essentially bestow a bigger market share to the digital behemoths like Amazon (AMZN) Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG).

E-Books: The Future Perfected?

When talk turned to enhancing e-books the divide between panelists yawned wider still. Galassi has little use for them: "who has time for all the enhancement? You could be in there forever." Miller reached back in history for his rebuttal, arguing that similar objections came up when Gutenberg created his press: "These books are going to be a real time suck." And with all the emphasis on e-reading, what of the book as a physical object? Newberg brought up Steve Martin's upcoming novel, which Hachette's Grand Central imprint (LGGDY) will issue in a "beautifully bound" edition. Pritchard, however, disagreed strongly with the notion that an object can stem the inevitable tide of downward pricing. In his mind, the vast majority of readers aren't going to care.

Watching the panel brought to mind the feeling of passengers trapped on a speeding train headed for a wall that might be made of solid brick or soothing transparent liquid. Nobody knows what that wall will be, and the fear of brick is doing battle with the possibility of the more permeable stuff. Whatever happens, that train is going to crash, creating a kind of chaos, either for good or for ill. In the end, Newberg proved the most pointed -- and funny -- about publishing's future. "I'm scared to death," she said at one point. "One of the only good things about being old is that I'm not going to have to deal with this for long."

Non-Traditional Books Lead Industry's Growth

This means, my dear book worms, that e-books are where the action is! This post gives some statistics RE the top genre of books sold on the internet as well as the top online publishers of 2009.

Gloria McDonough-Taub , CNBC Senior Editor of Blogs, published these details on her CNBC blog Bullish on Books :

Interesting release from Bowker—the folks who watch all things publishing.

Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker projects traditional U.S. title output in 2009 was virtually unchanged —BUT— the big driver in '09 were “non-traditional” books.

These so-called "non-traditional" books are marketed almost exclusively on the web and are largely those on-demand titles produced by reprint houses specializing in public domain works and by presses catering to self-publishers and "micro-niche" publications.

The production of print-on-demand books first surpassed traditional book publishing in 2008 and they've been on fire ever since.

Bowker reports these titles are now more than twice the output of traditional titles and only a handful of publishers dominate the market. “These companies are opening up new publishing venues by producing titles for very niche markets and also bringing public domain titles back to life. The net effect creates a long-tail that has no end,” said Kelly Gallagher, vice president of publishing services for New Providence, N.J.-based Bowker.

Ok, so we're reading, but take a look at what we're reading:

Categories that grew tended to be those that could help readers in the workplace or those looking for what I call, "economic survival guides." For example, output increased in technology (+11%), science (+9%) and personal finance (+9).

Losers—cookery and language titles each declined 16% and travel continued its year over year decline, down 5% in 2009 (it took a 10% loss in 2008).

Fiction titles also saw a second year of decline—down 15%.

Top Book Production Categories:

RANK CATEGORY 2009 2008
1. Fiction 45,181 53,058
2. Juveniles 32,348 29,825
3. Sociology
/Economics 25,992 24,737
4. Religion 19,310 18,296
5. Science 15,428 14,100


And as for those few who are doing so much - here's the list of those publishers who are dominating the "non-traditional" market.

Top Publishers by Title Output in 2009:

BiblioBazaar 272,930
Books LLC 224,460
Kessinger Publishing, LLC 190,175
CreateSpace 21,819
GeneralBooks LLC 11,887
Lulu.com 10,386
Xlibris Corporation 10,161
AuthorHouse 9,445
International Business Publications, USA 8,271
PublishAmerica, Incorporated 5,698

To read the full report, download the full statistics report here.

Email me at bullishonbooks@cnbc.com — And follow me on Twitter @BullishonBooks

Are They Ebooks or Digital Books?

I never thought about this question before, but, a distinction is emerging. E-books are thought of as licensable entities that come with possible restrictions and digital books are digitized library collections. Lorcan Dempsey, who writes Lorcan Dempsey's Weblog (on libraries, services and networks)explains the difference in more detail:

I was in a meeting with a group of folks from research libraries the other week. I was interested in a particular terminological issue: 'ebooks' and 'digital books' were each being used in conversation. I asked was there a pattern of consistent use here. 'Not complete consistency' was the answer, but there was certainly a tendency to use 'ebooks' for materials available for license from external providers, and a tendency to use 'digital books' for materials digitized from library collections.

So, in this context, it is easy to see how each expression has a different - if overlapping - set of associations. Ebooks may evoke an environment currently fragmented by provider platforms, with restrictions on use, and managed in a licensed e-resource workflow. They are for reference, information, reading. Digital books may evoke a digital library environment, an aspiration to provide higher level research services based on text mining, entity identification, and so on, and various funding and cooperative initiatives which aim to increase the corpus. The Monk Project or the international Digging into Data Challenge are examples of a direction here.

Over the next few years, it will be interesting to see how these environments evolve as ebooks/digital books grow in number and usage. Ebooks and digital books - to continue to use these ambiguous terms - will become more important in the practice of research and learning. There are at least three big drivers in the environment the group above was discussing. The first is around moving physical collections to the cloud as libraries balance service between local collections, shared offsite collections and digital collections. There are early discussions about policy and service frameworks within which libraries can reduce their print inventory and the opportunity costs associated with it (see here for example). The second is around the demand environment, as books in digital form offer a better fit with research and learning workflows which are increasingly network based. The increasing availability of books in digital form supports patterns of discovery, analysis and use now common with other resources. Think for example of the practice of 'strategic reading' (or 'reading avoidance') where researchers are found to prospect the literature broadly in a digital environment, searching, consulting abstracts, scanning for terminology, diagrams and so on (interestingly described by Renear and Palmer here). For many purposes, people will prefer the digital versions and will shift use. This is not to say that people will not continue to read physical books, but it is interesting to consider the pattern of adoption (and continued development) of the journal literature. The third is around the environment of supply, where there is major current activity. The post settlement Google Books institutional product offering, Amazon's attempt to 'iPodify' books, the rise of the iPhone, and a range of other developments point to rapidly changing opportunities.

So the relationship with the book literature is going to change in significant ways, which may make the ebook/digital book distinction advanced above less relevant. In fact, Google Book Search already moves beyond it in important ways. And libraries are exploring various syndication models (with Amazon, for example, or Kirtas) or in collaboration with publishers such as the the Cambridge Library Collection, for example. Fragmentation, of technical platform, of format, of business model, and so on, will complicate service provision..

This poses major questions for libraries at all levels. From a (current) workflow point of view, we will see a shift of more activity out of the 'bought' materials workflow into the 'licensed' materials workflow. From a collections point of view we will see a rebalancing between local, shared and third party print and digital provision in ways now being worked through. There are bigger issues, already with us with the journal literature, about the curation of the scholarly record, about sharing of materials, and about assuring the type of access that is compatible with use and re-use in research and learning.

I think that libraries may be underestimating the impact and pace of change in the book world ...

Bloomberg And Wiley Forms Book Publishing Alliance - Quick Facts

An interesting tidbit of publishing business news from RTT News, Global Financial Newswires:

Bloomberg L.P. announced that John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (JW-A: News ) will be the exclusive global publisher of Bloomberg and Bloomberg Businessweek branded books to be marketed as "Bloomberg Press, a Wiley imprint." Wiley plans to publish the content using all media platforms including print, e-books and digital.

John's Note: What is the difference between e-books and digital? They're both digital, are they not? I will address this in tomorrows post.

Wiley and Bloomberg will work closely to extend the Bloomberg and Businessweek brands to long-form content in books and other formats. With Wiley as the new global publisher and distributor of Bloomberg Press titles, Bloomberg and Wiley will leverage the core strengths of the Bloomberg Press imprint and bring an unparalleled selection of titles for business leaders, finance and market professionals as well as academia.