As ebook sales continue to soar a whole host of problems are surfacing says Scott Pack in this week's The Bookseller. The first week of a book's presence in the bestseller lists is crucial. But as ebooks aren't included in the sales figures, publishers naturally push new hardback releases far harder than their ebook equivalents:
Ebook Visibility
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Wednesday 27 April 2011
Books Without Publishers by Harry Bingham
Harry Bingham of The Writers Workshop recently lunched with the CEO of one of the UK's biggest publishers.
Today he guest blogs about the future of publishing over at
Confessions Of An Author.
Today he guest blogs about the future of publishing over at
Confessions Of An Author.
Friday 15 April 2011
London Book Fair 2011: Digital Summing Up
"Platform is key, distribution will be a challenge, but the digital numbers are finally beginning to live up to the hype." Andrew Albanese & Nicholas Clee at Publishers Weekly
“Enhanced e-books are dead, discoverability is the most important issue facing e-book vendors, while pricing strategies should be measured against other digital content, not physical books.” Philip Jones, TheBookseller.com
Digital Book World's roundup of the London Book Fair's Digital Conference
We understand the importance of platforms and why discoverability will be key. It's how we at blackbirdebooks are planning our future as a reputable epublisher of quality new fiction and non-fiction. But how can enhanced ebooks be dead when they're barely off the starting block yet? The UKEbookblog asked a technical wizard at the Fair. 'Because Apps are so expensive to make, there are too many of them. Nobody knows what's there and the retail pricing is too low to be profitable. An App that costs thousands to make can only sell for pennies.' He demonstrated an enchanting enhanced ebook App he'd made for one of the UK's top children's publishers. The retail price? £2.99/$4.90. And that's top-end. Many Apps sell for 0.59p/97 cents.
The buzzword we kept hearing in the digital corner of the Fair was ePub3.0. This enhancement to the Adobe system is set to appear sometime in the middle of this year. There was quite a bit of Apps verses ePub3 banter but it looks like ePub3 is set to challenge, if not replace, Apps at the visibly creative end of the eBook market. Ebooks produced in this format will be able to support multimedia content such as video, audio and much more. A child will be able to colour in a picture and email it to their parents for example. Unlike Apps, these eBooks can be sold in ordinary digital bookstores (like our own blackbirdebooks) and so will be a major step forward in solving the current "platform problem". Adobe's new ebook reader software supports ePub and is already out there, downloadable for free here.
Having seen what ePub3.0 will be capable of (by courtesy of the terrific Crius-group demo stand at the Fair) we are preparing to commission an author/film-maker to write one of our slated books with this exciting new format in mind.
Please consider buying this ebook put together by Enhanced Editions to raise awareness and money for the Red Cross:
The book is currently available for the Kindle, from the US and UK Kindle stores. These versions will also work in the iPad, iPhone and iPod versions of Kindle, and all proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Japan Red Cross Society.
Wednesday 30 March 2011
Amanda Hocking Tells How Strategic Ebook Pricing Made Her $Millions
America's most successful ebook author Amanda Hocking talks to The Authopublisher about her strategic pricing strategy.
Tuesday 29 March 2011
How The Smart Literary Agents Are Moving Forward In The Digital Age
Though we're catching up, ebooks and POD are so much more commonplace in the US than the UK. There, where the multi-million dollar deal for a self-published author has now become a reality, the smart literary agents are swiftly adapting their working methods to chime in with digital.
"As the big six take fewer chances on new writers and drop more midlist authors, and as it becomes easier to distribute titles with the rise in POD software and the growing popularity of digital books, some agents offer publishing programs and different types of representation," says a new report in Publishers Weekly. "At a panel at Digital Book World in January called "New Models for Agents," Jim Levine of the Levine Greenberg Agency, said he and his colleagues now consider themselves "multimedia producers" more than agents. Levine explained that he looks at manuscripts that potential clients bring in with an eye for how the content can live in various forms. Should this potential book be an app? An e-book? An enhanced e-book?"
"As the big six take fewer chances on new writers and drop more midlist authors, and as it becomes easier to distribute titles with the rise in POD software and the growing popularity of digital books, some agents offer publishing programs and different types of representation," says a new report in Publishers Weekly. "At a panel at Digital Book World in January called "New Models for Agents," Jim Levine of the Levine Greenberg Agency, said he and his colleagues now consider themselves "multimedia producers" more than agents. Levine explained that he looks at manuscripts that potential clients bring in with an eye for how the content can live in various forms. Should this potential book be an app? An e-book? An enhanced e-book?"
Wednesday 23 March 2011
Tuesday 1 March 2011
How UK Ebook Thriller Author Hit The Kindle Big Time
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The Guardian report on ebooks in UK profiles our first bestselling ebook author Stephen Leather.
How did he do it? He spotted the Christmas Day Kindle sales rush, priced his books low and then went on various forums to get his ebooks selling. 'Within a couple of weeks, all three titles were in the top 20 and "by November I'd knocked Stieg Larsson off the top spot".'
Read the full article here.
The Guardian report on ebooks in UK profiles our first bestselling ebook author Stephen Leather.
How did he do it? He spotted the Christmas Day Kindle sales rush, priced his books low and then went on various forums to get his ebooks selling. 'Within a couple of weeks, all three titles were in the top 20 and "by November I'd knocked Stieg Larsson off the top spot".'
Read the full article here.
Tuesday 8 February 2011
Kindle Upgrade Includes Page Numbers and Notesharing Facilities
Other upgrades include page numbers, a new newspaper and magazine layout and instant review facilities so that readers to rate their reads as soon as they've finished reading.
The new software will be delivered automatically to Kindles via WiFi or you can download it here now.
Monday 24 January 2011
Ebooks in Europe
Publishing Perspectives have an interesting article today on ebooks in Europe by Daniel Kalder.
There was no ebook market at all in Italy and Spain until summer 2010 but Europe could go on to become the third biggest market for ebooks after the US and Japan. There are no Kindles, Kindle users have to import from the UK.
"In Italy Rizzoli, Feltrinelli and Gruppo Gems developed the E-digita platform, In France a group comprised of Gallimard, Flammarion and others brought out Eden Livres. Most publishers use ePUB to make their books available digitally. Some use PDF format — but in the fiction and non-fiction segment they are a minority."
Read the full article here.
There was no ebook market at all in Italy and Spain until summer 2010 but Europe could go on to become the third biggest market for ebooks after the US and Japan. There are no Kindles, Kindle users have to import from the UK.
"In Italy Rizzoli, Feltrinelli and Gruppo Gems developed the E-digita platform, In France a group comprised of Gallimard, Flammarion and others brought out Eden Livres. Most publishers use ePUB to make their books available digitally. Some use PDF format — but in the fiction and non-fiction segment they are a minority."
Read the full article here.
Wednesday 19 January 2011
UK/Irish Ebook Author Sells 44,334 Novels on Kindle UK In One Month
Stephen Leather must be the most successful 'indie author' outside the US. His vampire novel Once Bitten and The Basement, a serial killer story set in New York, are numbers 1 and 2 in the UK Kindle bestseller fiction chart respectively. Another of his novels, Private Dancer, set in the world of Bangkok dancing girl bars, has been highly praised for its authenticity (he lives between London, Dublin and Bangkok).
His Kindle sales chart, which he's just published on his blog, shows clearly that selling ebooks at 99 cents brings in a great deal more sales than 'full price' ($2.99/$3.99). Since Amazon revised their royalty payment schedule last June, however, the 99 cent option is no longer open to new indie authors. The lowest price an author can now charge is $2.99 in the US and £1.49 in the UK, for which they receive a 70% royalty.
Stephen Leather's blog: How To Make A Million Dollars From Writing Ebooks (or How I Learned To Love The Kindle.
His Kindle sales chart, which he's just published on his blog, shows clearly that selling ebooks at 99 cents brings in a great deal more sales than 'full price' ($2.99/$3.99). Since Amazon revised their royalty payment schedule last June, however, the 99 cent option is no longer open to new indie authors. The lowest price an author can now charge is $2.99 in the US and £1.49 in the UK, for which they receive a 70% royalty.
Stephen Leather's blog: How To Make A Million Dollars From Writing Ebooks (or How I Learned To Love The Kindle.
Monday 17 January 2011
Kindle Impact on UK Likely To Be Similar To US, Stats Are Showing
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As HarperCollins reveals digital sales figures of its number one title, Shatter The Bones by Stuart MacBride, FutureBook's Philip Jones says Kindle is likely to have same impact on UK as in US.
As HarperCollins reveals digital sales figures of its number one title, Shatter The Bones by Stuart MacBride, FutureBook's Philip Jones says Kindle is likely to have same impact on UK as in US.
Wednesday 12 January 2011
Ebook Self-Publishers - The Top 25 Earners
Jason Davis at TeleRead lists December sales figures for top indie authors ranging from 2,500+/month to 100,000+/month.
He estimates that top seller Amanda Hocking is taking $209,000 a month.
Read the full article here.
He estimates that top seller Amanda Hocking is taking $209,000 a month.
Read the full article here.
Tuesday 11 January 2011
Publishing Innovation Awards Longlist
The longlist for first ever Publishing Innovation Awards has been announced.
The best ebooks and apps have been split into 5 categories: origination, development, production, design and marketing.
UK contenders include:
Atomic Antelope's Alice for iPad
and
Canongate Books Ltd's Why the Net Matters: How The Internet Will Save Civilisation by David Eagleman
Another non-US contender is New Zealand's
P Q Blackwell Ltd's Andrew Zukermann: Music (and what an amazing website they have).
The top 5 finalists in each category will be announced at the Digital Book World conference in New York on Monday, 17th Jan 2011.
Read more here.
The best ebooks and apps have been split into 5 categories: origination, development, production, design and marketing.
UK contenders include:
Atomic Antelope's Alice for iPad
and
Canongate Books Ltd's Why the Net Matters: How The Internet Will Save Civilisation by David Eagleman
Another non-US contender is New Zealand's
P Q Blackwell Ltd's Andrew Zukermann: Music (and what an amazing website they have).
The top 5 finalists in each category will be announced at the Digital Book World conference in New York on Monday, 17th Jan 2011.
Read more here.
Thursday 6 January 2011
Self-Publishing To Go Mainstream In 2011
In his top 5 ebook predictions for 2011, US ebook guru Mark Coker says that, as 2010 was the year ebooks went mainstream, 2011 will be the year indie authors go mainstream.
Agents will be encouraging their new authors to work directly with ebook distribution platforms. Authors can showcase not only their writing and storytelling skills, but their marketability as well. In hard figures. Agents will then use these for leverage when negotiating print deals.
The US (plus France, Holland, Japan and many countries in Asia) are ahead of the UK, but, in the past few months, momentum here has soared. Next year's growth trajectory is going to be steep. It looks like the UK will be on a more parallel course for change as it happens in the US.
Five Ebook Predictions for 2011 - Huffington Post
Agents will be encouraging their new authors to work directly with ebook distribution platforms. Authors can showcase not only their writing and storytelling skills, but their marketability as well. In hard figures. Agents will then use these for leverage when negotiating print deals.
The US (plus France, Holland, Japan and many countries in Asia) are ahead of the UK, but, in the past few months, momentum here has soared. Next year's growth trajectory is going to be steep. It looks like the UK will be on a more parallel course for change as it happens in the US.
Five Ebook Predictions for 2011 - Huffington Post
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