Category Archives: Marketing

Will B&N Survive?

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Recently Len Riggio, chairman of B&N, sold 2 million of his shares. Does this mean he thinks the bookseller will follow Borders’ demise?

That’s unclear. Although any chairman who sells off massive amounts of stock usually seems to signal a lack of faith in the company, Riggio claims he did it for tax planning. It is the end of the year, after all.

Interestingly, he also donated 160,000 shares to The Riggio Foundation, a nonprofit that spent $20 million rebuilding homes in New Orleans. That could mean he wants the nonprofit to benefit from the shares. It could be too that he thinks the foundation can take that hit if the shares tank.

At this point, it’s clear that readers are turning to independent bookstores in numbers greater than ever. In part they recognize the value of hand-selling, and appreciate the service that comes from local, small stores. Between that and Amazon, B&N might have to revamp its approach or prepare for the end.

Top Ten Short Story Collections

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A roundup from Publisher’s Weekly about the top ten short story collections.

Longreads Funding Longform Writing

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Longreads, a platform that curates fiction and nonfiction over 1,500 words, is starting a big push to increase membership. It’s free for users or you can buy full access to the site for a nominal fee. Longform works are experiencing a resurgence, so the time is right to find works that mirror your own. 

Top Ten Horror Books

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Publisher’s Weekly offers a list of the top ten horror books. How does your writing compare?

Amazon Publishing Update

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Larry Kirshbaum, the head of Amazon Publishing, will step down early next year when his contract is up so he can return to agenting. The program had difficulty gearing up to meet Amazon’s expectations and failed to attract any major bestsellers.

The future of the program is uncertain. Distribution into bookstores has been an issue all along despite their contract with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for distribution through their channels.

Amazon still remains big in self-publishing but for authors interested in a physical bookstore presence, they might be better served elsewhere.

What Does Amazon Bestseller Status Mean?

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Because Amazon is very closed about sales information, it’s difficult to really judge what’s going on behind their algorithms. Publisher’s Weekly recently studied a few titles and determined that it takes about 300 sales of a single title per day to hit that marker.

Note, however, that these numbers are for the primary categories. The rankings also placed the titles in the top 10, not just the top 100. If you set your book into a smaller category, you need far fewer sales to hit the top 100. You’ll still need hundreds of sales per day to get into the top 10 but in the top 100, you’ll receive the additional benefits of Amazon’s algorithms.

Matchbook Grows

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Amazon’s bundling initiative, where purchasers of print books receive the ebook for free or a very low price, has already grown. The launch day offered 10,000 titles. Within a very short period of time, the number grew to 70,000 titles.

Currently, one of the biggest complaints about Matchbook is that most of the titles are backlisted…they are older titles that don’t hold much interest for readers. Try offering your own works now on Matchbook and be one of the few recent titles available. It’s an additional benefit that might help sales.

Two Decades of Book Trends

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USA Today recently looked at twenty years of bestselling books from their own lists. Here’s what they found.

Self-help titles were big during the first five years. Oddly, the magazine connects this trend to the fact that print copies were still king then. In actuality, though, ebooks were first taken up by individuals reading nonfiction.

J.K. Rowling shattered the myths about what young readers wanted to consume both in terms of content and length during the 1998-2008 era.

Since 2009, in part due to the availability of ebooks (and of course the enhanced ability of readers to locate fiction through algorithms), fiction has risen to all-time highs.

New Ebook Purchase Model Might Benefit Authors

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Gale has launched a new purchase option for libraries. It’s a Usage-Driven Acquisition (UDA) model for ebooks. It allows libraries to purchase ebooks based on actual usage.

Since one of the latest trends among readers of ebooks is the frustration over not being able to share or gift their ebooks to others, this model might be something everyone can utilize to open DRM barriers that currently stop the average purchaser from sharing an ebook. If applied, it could provide authors with income based on actual readers.

Stats on the Publishing Industry

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Quite a bit of chatter is going around these days about how self-publishing is shaking up traditional publishers. In some ways it is a war between sides that are battling for attention from the same pool of readers. WIthout going into all the other elements, let’s remember one key fact:

Self-published titles represent 10% of the current market.

This means that a number of places where books traditionally are distributed–brick-and-mortar bookstores, big-box retailers, shopping clubs and the like–aren’t paying very much attention at all to self-published titles.

When considering your career, take all the details into account to find the best path for you and your work.

Opportunity for Juvenile and YA Authors

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The Best American Nonrequired Reading contest finds stories appropriate for young readers that aren’t going to make any required reading lists in school. Selected by a handful of high school students, the collection is published by Houghton-Mifflin. Contact the committee at nonrequired@gmail.com. They read every week, and they read every piece sent in.

Ebooks are Changing Reading Habits

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USA Today reports that ebooks are changing reading habits. Here are the highlights:

–Readers who buy ebook readers report that the amount of reading they do has increased in a big way, sometimes doubling the number of books read in a year.

— The top genres being read were sci-fi, romance, mystery/crime fiction, and nonfiction.

–Having read a particular author before and word-of-mouth were the top two ways readers made their selections.

The 80/20 Sales Rule for Authors

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It’s long been known in business that 20% of your existing customers generate 80% of your sales. The same can be said of book fans. When someone reads a novel or nonfiction title they enjoy, they will actively seek out additional works by the same author. Keep these tips in mind as you reach out to your fan base.

–Keep in contact through social media or your email lists. Let people know what you’re working on as well as opportunities to find older titles you might not be actively marketing.

–Serve your fans. Why are people reading your novels: for entertainment, for a deeper social message? Is your nonfiction a vehicle for inspiration or concrete tips? Be sure to address these components with every outreach.

–Reward return readers. Find a way to say thank you to fans who keep coming back. Offer to provide free ebooks to anyone who sends in a receipt for a particular printed title. Host a lunchtime Skype session where you chat with readers about their burning questions about your upcoming book.

Keep these ideas in mind and you’ll build loyalty to you, the brand behind your books.

 

The Stories Behind Famous Book Covers

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I’ve posted before on the importance of a book’s cover. I’ve also included links to lists of successful covers and downright terrible covers. Now Publisher’s Weekly’s blog has set up a collection of covers with the stories behind each.

Take a moment to check this out. It contains a lot of information you can use when considering how well your own cover will work.

How Books Avoid the Digital Decline

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The New Republic magazine recently presented an article on how books are avoiding the digital decline seen in the music and video entertainment industries.

Generally, CDs declined not because people switched to digital versions that were cheaper but because they listen to songs individually…and wanted to buy only one or two songs from an album.

TV shows suffered the same fate. The packages of entire seasons weren’t always what people wanted to buy and so they turned to individual streaming of single shows.

Books, on the other hand, can’t be offered in pieces. Although some authors have found success serializing their books by releasing single chapters at a time, most readers want to consume the entire work in a single sitting or multiple sittings performed within a short timeframe. This is part of the engagement of readers in a story or nonfiction topic, so books perform better for readers when they are consumed in this fashion.

So, although prices have fluctuated for ebooks, there really isn’t any comparison that can be made for how a reader is impacted by a book. It has to be taken as a complete whole at the reader’s leisure, not in bits strung out over time.

As we move forward into this new world of publishing, remember that. Price your works accordingly, and reserve the low prices and bundling deals as short-term sales.