E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead • Hacker News Board

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#101

Post by petra » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #69

bduerst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketplace is getting worse for e-books, not better. Amazon has been pushing the "Kindle Unlimited" subscription model and changed how authors get paid for those consumers, which favors shorter stories. Authors have taken to breaking out a book's chapters and releasing them individually [1] to capitalize on this model. Conversely, this gives them more shelf space in Amazon's recommendations, and because they are…

>Amazon has been pushing the "Kindle Unlimited" subscription model and changed how authors get paid for those consumers, which favors shorter stories. A couple of points. People seem to be shifting in general, George R. R. Martin novels notwithstanding, to favoring shorter content. My specific experience is more in the marketing literature and research reports space but there we've seen a clear shift toward shorter a…

>> My specific experience is more in the marketing literature ... there we've seen a clear shift toward shorter and more visual content being preferred.

Could you please give some example of such books?

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#102

Post by facepalm » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

Nav_Panel wrote: post #22

TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

I hold fairly different opinions, though I agree that digital reading sources can make sense for completely new books read for pleasure. As a longtime physical product, paper has a lot of benefits. My dad can give me a book he read in college, just grab it off the shelf. I can go buy books extremely cheaply secondhand, sometimes free. I can't imagine paying $10 for an ebook when I can go to a used bookstore and pay $…

I used to worry about the dad thing (well handing books to my son, to be more precise). However - I don't read that many books from my own dad, so maybe my son won't be bothered that much. Also, many books will be in the public domain by the time he might want to read them. Or there will be subscription models where he can just read them for free. Or, I would just have to buy it for him a second time, again, realistically speaking it won't be that many books anyway.

How many books do you own, and how often have you moved? Both numbers tend to increase with age, and usually don't increase the love for paper books.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#103

Post by teacup50 » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

6502nerdface wrote: post #61

bduerst wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketplace is getting worse for e-books, not better. Amazon has been pushing the "Kindle Unlimited" subscription model and changed how authors get paid for those consumers, which favors shorter stories. Authors have taken to breaking out a book's chapters and releasing them individually [1] to capitalize on this model. Conversely, this gives them more shelf space in Amazon's recommendations, and because they are…

> Authors have taken to breaking out a book's chapters and releasing them individually [1] to capitalize on this model. This is exactly how many classic novels and other long works of literature were originally published in the Victorian and Edwardian periods [1]. For genres like SF and Fantasy, this remained a common model well into the twentieth century. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a modern…

Science Fiction came into its own once we moved past serialization; there's simply more value in a complete, cohesive, edited book.

Serialization was simple an industry constraint, not an actual desirable state of being.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#104

Post by ghaff » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

facepalm wrote: post #102

Nav_Panel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hold fairly different opinions, though I agree that digital reading sources can make sense for completely new books read for pleasure. As a longtime physical product, paper has a lot of benefits. My dad can give me a book he read in college, just grab it off the shelf. I can go buy books extremely cheaply secondhand, sometimes free. I can't imagine paying $10 for an ebook when I can go to a used bookstore and pay $…

I used to worry about the dad thing (well handing books to my son, to be more precise). However - I don't read that many books from my own dad, so maybe my son won't be bothered that much. Also, many books will be in the public domain by the time he might want to read them. Or there will be subscription models where he can just read them for free. Or, I would just have to buy it for him a second time, again, realisti…

I'm definitely sympathetic to the DRM and dad thing. And, in many ways, it applies more broadly to digital assets (whether DRMd or not) vs. physical ones. OTOH, I've spent way too much effort throughout my life lugging stuff around and I'm currently trying to, however slowly, systematically digitizing things I care about that are amenable to it.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#105

Post by petra » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #49

While lots of people are pointing to pricing as the reason for this decline, and that's obviously a big factor, I think you also have to look at the decline of the tablet here. Phones just don't produce a really great reading experience. Actual computers are obviously never going to be a big market. Dedicated e-readers probably don't make sense to people who aren't voracious readers. And tablets are increasingly bein…

>> Phones just don't produce a really great reading experience.

If i'm not mistaken, the kindle is 6".Many phone are 5.5" or 5" which isn't that different - especially with the fact you can control the zoom.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#106

Post by Apofis » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

The new iPad Pro should be really really good for comic book reading, as the traditional 10" iPad is a bit too small, leading you to have to scroll around as you read.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#107

Post by uhtred » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

This for me is good news. I love reading printed books. If it's a novel, then I enjoy being able to relax, away from an electronic screen, and go into another world for a time. I also love the feel and smell of books, and the cover art work. And browsing a book store to find my next read is, for me, much more of a pleasure than browsing Amazon. Also, there's something nice about a well filled bookshelf, and nosing through someone else's gives you a great sense of who that person is.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#108

Post by teacup50 » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 9:59 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #60

Small publisher here. I believe Ebook sales have been generally flat or declining for many titles for the following reasons: * Pricing issues * Huge influx of new/republished titles entering ebook distribution channels are outpacing demand, including many free or low-cost self-published titles * Kindle Fire sales negatively impacting ebook reading habits encourages people to do other things besides read (video, apps,…

The biggest issue I have with ebooks (and I read a LOT on my Kindle) is in digging through all the self-published crap to find actual novels published by reputable publishing companies.

This is a huge turn-off, so much so that despite liking the Kindle hardware and OS, I'm ready to switch to something else (and possibly back to paper books).

The Kindle Unlimited subscription service is actually a huge frustration to me -- it devalues authors' work, and so unsurprisingly, only crappy books are available. On top of that, it's undermining the marketplace in such a way that it's even harder for authors/publishers to make a dime, and we wind up with even fewer good books.

Amazon has (and only very recently) acquired a spot on my shitlist for crimes against literature.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#109

Post by derefr » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

petra wrote: post #100

derefr wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not on a whim; I've actually thought for a while now that "non-partisan IP license store" is the perfect use-case for a blockchain—one much more fitting a blockchain's particular system of incentives than the exchange of monetary tokens. An account for holding IP licenses is, at minimum, just a bag of arbitrary tokens (UUIDs, say) signed by IP owners. To make them useful, the tokens might be, say, SHAs of files…

Actually the biggest problem in building marketplaces of any form - is getting enough users and service providers. The fact that a providers(publisher) cannot enforce their policies would make this problem much worse.

Yes, but that's rather the point. Any system where IP owners can enforce their policies is very likely to not obey the first-sale doctrine or any other IP case-law. It won't be a digital tool for leveraging the IP rights we have; it'll be someone's store. (Probably either Amazon's or Apple's, realistically.)

The only version of this tool that actually does what it's for is the one that's really hard to get off the ground and that would be reviled by every provider that touches it. But, unlike Bitcoin vs. fiat currency, this sort of a system would actually be flowing with the grain of the law—to the point that, in the end, if it survived, it would likely because governments mandated its use (or built their own versions of it, either-or) in order to more easily prove corporate IP asset ownership, calculate net worth for tax purposes, streamline the patent and trademark offices, etc.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#110

Post by CurtMonash » Wed, Sep 23, 2015, 10:06 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #42

TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

The marketplace is getting worse for e-books, not better. Amazon has been pushing the "Kindle Unlimited" subscription model and changed how authors get paid for those consumers, which favors shorter stories. Authors have taken to breaking out a book's chapters and releasing them individually [1] to capitalize on this model. Conversely, this gives them more shelf space in Amazon's recommendations, and because they are…

That is misleading at best.

First, as of July, Amazon started paying by pages read, not by "books of which at least 10% was read". Authors/publishers now no longer even get statements saying how many borrows your book got; rather, they list page reads. Payout right now is about half a cent per page, for fairly small pages, with some potential bonuses on top of that.

Second, that's where the money is now for independent authors, much more than in sales.

Based on figures I've seen, in a mix of public and confidential, I'd guess that independent authors are getting paid, just for borrows, about as much as conventionally published authors do for $1 billion of annual book sales, give or take a factor of 2.