KYRA DAVIS: e-books: A Dynamic Market In Uncertain Times

Author Paul Levine wrote an interesting article for The Huffington Post about the future of publishing and e-books. He points out that Simon & Schuster had a decline in sales in their printed books department but their e-book sales were up 233%. Now it's a myth that all the major publishing houses are experiencing sales declines right now. Adult hardcover sales are actually up around 16% for the year. However e-book sales are, overall, up approximately 250%. Of course it's important to remember that e-books represent only a small fraction of overall book sales. Publishers have stated that 90% of their sales are in regular ol' print books.

And yet.

e-books accounted for 29% of total units sold during the first week sales of Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. That's 125,000 e-books sold in a week. Only last year the e-book for Dan Brown's Lost Symbol consisted of a meager 10% of overall book sales for that title. Not 10% of the first week of sales, 10% overall. 10% for Brown last year and 29% in a week for Larsson this year. Things are changing, and quickly.

In the meantime Barnes & Noble's in-store sales are down 3% for the quarter and yet their overall sales have been up 19%. In other words the bulk of their sales are happening online and a lot of that has to do with Nook and the e-books being sold for it. Yet the overhead for their stores is so high that they're still losing money.

So is it any wonder that Barnes & Noble, Borders and to a lesser degree, the independent bookstores are stocking up on the books written by authors who have consistently ended up on the top of the New York Times bestseller list and scaling back inventory on books written by midlist authors that can (hopefully) be sold online for less cost to the bookseller? As of now Barnes & Noble is insisting that they will be doing very limited store closures. They believe that the superstores drive business to their website...but I don't necessarily trust that this is a philosophy or a strategy that they'll stick to. It's entirely possible that Barnes & Noble will start opting for fewer and smaller stores with lower overhead. Stores that are basically just physical advertisements for their website where the bulk of their sales are taking place.

All of this has made me take a very hard look at my own career and how to proceed from here. Two publishing houses have let me know (sorta-kinda-off-the-record) that if I want to publish the next Sophie book exclusively as an e-book they would be quite happy to offer me a contract. They see the writing on the wall and they want to be sure to have a strong e-book collection to offer up as that market grows. But how does teaming up with a publishing house benefit an e-book author? The publisher won't be promoting the work. They'll just be formatting it and making sure it's available for Kindle, Nook and iPad. And for their efforts they'll get the bulk of the profits. But authors can format their own books. Authors can ensure that their books are available for all the e-readers without any kind of middleman. It's true that self-published authors will have to work to find a good editor for their work but it's questionable if the publishing houses' editors assigned to e-books will really be the crème de la crème anyway.

So I'm sticking with my plan to self-publish the next Sophie book. I will make it available as a physical book that can be ordered online and I'm going to really try to get it recorded and sold as an audio book but most of my focus will be on the world of e-books. I won't be able to give it one of those bargain basement $2.99 price tags but if it sells well then I will be in the position to continue the series and hopefully make it increasingly affordable for my readers. And most importantly I hope to position Sophie in a way that will help her soar in this new and dynamic market of e-books.

The industry is changing and so are the rules booksellers, publishers and authors will need to play by. I don't know how it's all going to play-out but I'm truly interested in finding out.

Kyra Davis

Bestselling Author of:

The Sophie Katz Mystery Series
and
So Much For My Happy Ending
Order Vows, Vendettas & A Little Black Dress today!

Vows, Vendettas and a Little
Black Dress

11 comments :

rourriThursday, July 8, 2010 at 3:05:00 PM PDT
So what does it take to have it published as an audio book? What are the hurdles? The e-book market seems to be leveling the playing field for lots of people to come up... but what are the needs (like ebooks need to be formatted) for audio...I know there is a talent purchase for the voice, and editing, but beyond that how does it differ from the ebooks as its downloaded from itunes or audible.com?
DruThursday, July 8, 2010 at 4:03:00 PM PDT
Good post. I know of several authors who have made their stories available as e-books.
kyradavisThursday, July 8, 2010 at 4:30:00 PM PDT
Rourri: I'm actually trying to figure that out myself. The good news is that Audible.com is owned by Amazon and Amazon has made it pretty clear that they're open to working directly with authors (and bypassing the publisher). However Audible is working with contracts with publishing houses. They assign the talent (voice) not the publisher and their accounts and arrangement with said publishers is based on the promise that MULTIPLE authors from that publishing house will be distributed through Audible. I have a couple of ideas as to how to work around the system on this one and I may be in a good position to appeal to Amazon to make an exception for me since my audible sales have been so strong for them.

As things develop I'll share what I learn here. Stay tuned
Anne OsherowitzThursday, July 8, 2010 at 4:44:00 PM PDT
I think that self publishing is a good way to go. You already have an established fan base who will buy the books. I have all 5 of your Sophie Katz books (purchased from audiobooks.com - I listen on my iPod in the car). I would definitely buy the Kindle version of your next book. I'd be happy to pay $7.99 - $9.99. If you do continue to do the audio with audible.com, I hope you get to keep Gabra Zackman as the narrator. I really enjoy listening to her.
kyradavisThursday, July 8, 2010 at 9:34:00 PM PDT
And that's how I want to price the Kindle book, Anne. Certainly now higher than $9.99. If I am able to get the next book in audible form I will do EVERYTHING in my power to get Gabra to read them. She's spectacular.

The support of readers like you means the world to me. You are the reason Sophie is still going strong :)
AnonymousFriday, July 9, 2010 at 11:55:00 AM PDT
Good blog. I love the fact that your books are available on kindle. I've stopped buying physical books due to lack of space. And having just moved to Norway there is no way I am going to ship 20 odd boxes of books (I sold them to 1/2 priced books already lol). I def think the e-book is a great way to go :)
kyradavisFriday, July 9, 2010 at 12:38:00 PM PDT
Thank you Anne-Kathrine. It's hard to deny the convenience of e-books. They're incredibly portable, they eliminate the need for bookmarks and you can get the book you want within 60 seconds of ordering it. I still have a soft spot for actual physical books but I can now see that the transition from paperback to Kindle isn't going to be a traumatic as I initially expected.
DivaMomSaturday, July 10, 2010 at 9:27:00 AM PDT
I, for one, still like the old fashioned book in my hand as I'm curled up on my chair with a blanket. I am on computers all day for work, I have loaded all my CDs onto my iPod and downloaded music from iTunes, I even watch a lot of movies and TV shows online from my computer. However, I just have no desire to read a book on my computer or other device, and I'm also not a fan of audio books. If an author were to go to e-book only, I probably wouldn't read them anymore. By the way, I just purchased Vows... from Amazon and it's being shipped as we speak! Can't wait to read it!
kyradavisSunday, July 11, 2010 at 1:12:00 AM PDT
First of all, I hope you enjoy Vows, Vendettas & A Little Black Dress!!

As for e-books, well I've always been an old-fashioned book reader myself. I don't know if I'd even own a Kindle or a Nook if someone hadn't bought it for me and even after they did it took me almost 6 months to finally reluctantly download a book onto it.

But now that I have...

While there are still some things that I can't imagine reading in e-book form (like a Shakespearean Sonnet being read on a Kindle just seems WRONG) I have found that the transition is almost disturbingly easy, certainly a lot easier than I had anticipated. I mean I'm the girl that has books piled up against every wall in her house! I just can't part w/them! But it IS nice to be able to find a book that I'm interested in online and have it in my hands in less than a minute. I also don't miss the days when I had to skim a book in order to find that one quote I wanted to reprint in my blog. Now I just highlight it on my Kindle and without permanently damaging a page it's just there, waiting for me to "search highlights." I don't miss never losing my place when the bookmark falls out because Kindle & Nook always remember where you left off and I don't miss having to choose what book to bring on my vacation because now I can literally bring hundreds of them.

I can't imagine paper books simply disappearing from our world. I love paper and glue books, I love the romance of them, and I'll always be happy to have them crowd the rooms of my home. But my guess is that in 10 years or so about 50% of authors will only be published in e-book form. Lots of publishers are offering those kinds of contracts right now. In 20 years e-books may be the dominant medium. It's a little off-putting, but as I said, not as off-putting as I thought it would be. So I suppose that's something :)
karmstr112Saturday, July 24, 2010 at 10:47:00 PM PDT
You've put a lot of thought into moving to e-books. I first read you in paperback, then moved onto audio. I really hope you can work out a way to continue giving Sophie a voice.

In the new digital age of audio & e-book, how do you see author appearances & book signings being run?
kyradavisSunday, July 25, 2010 at 3:13:00 PM PDT
Well, my initial move into e-books wasn't my choice. My publisher made that decision when they decided to make me available on Kindle, but yes, I've certainly thought about how e-books will affect the future of my publishing career as well as the publishing industry as a whole. Amazon just announced that for every 100 hardcover books they sold during the first quarter of this year they sold 143 e-books, so times they are a-changing.

For some time now publishers have been encouraging authors to do "blog tours," Tweet and Facebook in LIEU of doing a traditional book tour. With the exception of the A-listers, if you see an author touring that author has probably paid for it him/herself. And publishers even believe that the only benefit of touring A-listers is to pad the A-listers egos. They just don't see those appearances as big selling tools. I'm not in full agreement. I think that if you're a good speaker then you should probably tour. If you're a midlister touring can be VERY beneficial, regardless of what medium your book is being sold in.