Category Archives: Bookselling

Amazon’s Power Play: Nielsen Data As A Gateway Drug

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I’ve seen a lot of comment about Amazon’s offer of 4 weeks free Nielsen data to writers through their Author Central product. Some of it is fair and some of it is unfair.

I think it’s fair to say that authors will like this, that publishers should really have been making access to sales data more freely available to authors anyway and that in general access to the data will be both useful and enlightening to some authors.

I think it’s unfair to say that not allowing access to Nielsen data showed how foolish/badly-run/outdated the industry was. Most of the time I’d wager the publishers’ agreements with Nielsen had strict rules about dispersing such data and who could access the information where.

From the author perspective Dave Cullen put’s the case for having some kind of sales data access well in his post on the topic, but you can guess from what I’ve said about that I disagree with about as much as I agree with in his post overall.

I’m interested to see that the debate has centred on sales and how this makes authors more conscious of sales as in the LA Times Jacket Copy blog:

In recent years, individual authors have increasingly been asked to take part in the marketing and promotion of their own books. Publishers have faced budget cutbacks, and the Internet has provided authors with more ways of reaching readers — and potential book buyers. Amazon sees the Nielsen BookScan data as a tool to that end. “The geographic view of print sales will help authors identify trends to help their promotion efforts and enables authors to develop more effective methods for reaching the widest possible audience,” Amazon’s Kinley Campbell wrote in an e-mail.

Just in time for Christmas, Amazon may be turning authors into an army of booksellers.

But I’m also certain that this misses the mark. Think about what this move has cost Amazon. First off, money. And I’d wager quite a chunk of money, it’s no mean service they have rolled out to authors. Secondly it will have pissed off publishers somewhat. Now you might say Amazon don’t care about that, but I say they do up to a point, and that point is where the amount of trouble caused by pissing off publishers is outweighed by the amount of good this does Amazon.

So what good DOES this do for Amazon? Well it creates a compelling reason for an author to open an Amazon Author Central account. It enables Amazon to gain rich metadata about those authors to help them increase sales. It probably enables Amazon to cross promote other author services like CreateSpace and Kindle’s DTP. In that sense, the data will be Amazon’s lure to authors who will be reluctant to forgo the stats once the have them (and boy do I know the power of stats) and so may be inclined to pool their service deals with one provider. This will be especially important if (as seems to be the case) digital sales increase and more and more authors move independent.

It also gives Author Central a USP over say Facebook, Twitter, Filedby or some other platform that an author might wish to spend time building a network from. In that sense it is a play to aggregate author information and enable Amazon to stay ahead of the game.

This is not Amazon being generous or simply throwing its money around wastefully, this is clearly a well thought through long-term strategy to create a great reason for authors to have a good Author Central profile. Who knows, perhaps soon only authors with proper pics and biogs will have access to the data.

It’s less about making the writers booksellers and more about making them data-entry clerks and using the aggregated data to sell books and selling the authors other services too.

Or maybe I’m just being a cynic.
Eoin

Unconvincing, Worth Reading Though | Boston Review — Onnesha Roychoudhuri: Books After Amazon

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This reads like an extended complaint letter from publishers to Amazon. I’m unconvinced.

There’s nothing here that’s new or original, nothing that suggests anything other than an old order faced with a new one, and even that motif is tired.

I get no sense of what kind of ‘King’ Amazon will be, if indeed King it will be. I get no sense of where the reader fits into this little picture, nor the writers, nor even for that matter, despite the chatter in the piece about them, the booksellers, large or small?

In short it’s fun to moan about Amazon, but why are you moaning, who other than the publishers (and perhaps the booksellers, though that case is less clearly establish in this piece) is being hurt?

 

Publishers who once met directly with Amazon representatives find they can no longer reach anyone at the company, even by phone. Many publishers with distributors don’t even know the name of the person who buys their books at Amazon. The relationship is almost exclusively handled by the distributor. Indeed, of the 20,000 employees at Amazon, just one is tasked full-time with working as a liaison between the company and publishers.

Jeffrey Lependorf, Executive Director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and of Small Press Distribution, suggests that the difference between Amazon and brick-and-mortar bookstores is most evident in how they market books: “I think even people at Amazon would say that it’s essentially a widget seller that happens to have begun by focusing on books. Many people, like me, will say you can’t sell a book the same way you sell a can of soup.”

At the heart of the soup-can analogy are the algorithms that Amazon uses to “recommend” books to customers. Most customers aren’t aware that the personalized book recommendations they receive are a result of paid promotions, not just purchase-derived data. This is frustrating for publishers who want their books to be judged on their merits. “I think their twisted algorithms that point you toward bestsellers instead of books that you might actually like [are] a shame,” Gavin Grant, cofounder of Small Beer Press, laments.

Algorithms can also affect how much customers pay for books. Individual customers may get different discounts on the same book depending on their purchase history. The practice is euphemistically called “dynamic pricing.” According to Roger Williams—the former sales director at Simon & Schuster, and one of the first salespeople to deal directly with Amazon—the complexity of the algorithms is such that, Amazon’s employees “sometimes don’t know themselves what is going to show up in some of the pages that appear.”

via Boston Review — Onnesha Roychoudhuri: Books After Amazon.

Go Read This | Book battle: Dymocks considers offshore option – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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Fascinating story this. I’ve heard and been part of a few conversations about this phenomenon for some time. It is interesting both from the perspective of the booksellers and the publishing, and the state’s perspective. It demonstrates the way that external actors can undermine a state’s tax base. I wonder if, like in some US states, the government will actually start imposing a sales tax on foreign/non-state based outlets?

Take Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller, The Millennium Trilogy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. Even on sale, they’re still $16 more expensive in store than from the UK, including delivery.

That is the dilemma for one of Australia’s biggest book sellers. Dymocks is considering moving its online business offshore because it says it cannot compete with cheap, online sales.

Dymocks chief executive Don Grover says overseas retailers have an unfair advantage because they do not pay GST.

“Dymocks has been in the business for 130 years, and we’re actually now having to make a decision about whether or not to move our online business offshore,” he told the ABC.”

It would actually make more sense for us to send books from an overseas location back into Australia and avoid the GST. To give a competitive advantage to overseas web sites of 10 per cent is just unsustainable.”

Don Grover says his company is already trimming its margins, and the success of cheap, international web sites is making it hard to compete.

via Book battle: Dymocks considers offshore option – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Go Read This | Giller Winner’s Publisher Dones’t Want To Go Mainstream

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I can’t decide whether this is a crazy or a wise decision. The idea that it is an essential move by the publisher is nicely and effectively countered by publisher’s own words. They have to think about the long term position of their company, rather than just one book. on the other hand, there’s a deal to be done and more than likely one of the big publishers will be more than happy to put one of their imprints on the spine!

Then there is the financial cost to Ms. Skibsrud of the lost opportunity. The last Giller winner sold 75,000 copies. At even a dollar or two of royalties a book, this would represent a considerable sum – one which she will never touch if the book doesn’t sell in large quantities. She struggled to pay her way through school while working on the book in her spare time. Shouldn’t she now reap the rewards of her success — some of which would presumably flow back to Gaspereau, who took the chance publishing her book in the first place, even if if they don’t print tens of thousands of copies?

The irony as well is that in recent years there has been grumbling in the Canadian literary community that only books backed by major publishing houses ever win. Well, now one wins from a small press – and this is the result. Has Gaspereau considered the implications for other authors down the road? Do they think the Giller jury will be as well-disposed to small-press books if their publishers take this attitude?

Apparently, the owners of Gaspereau are meeting tomorrow to “review their options”. Maybe if they hear from enough people who are equally distressed at their decision, they will reconsider.

Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/11/11/tasha-kheiriddin-giller-decision-leaves-readers-gaspereau-ing/#ixzz153nuaBFn

Go Read This | Publishing industry at risk from agency model, claims agent | theBookseller.com

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The way I see it, folks ant dumb, they know that the cost of a virtual copy is virtually nothing. Now you can argue about VAT and other costs but in their heads they think you are robbing them when you price hard and high, so either be willing to accept blow back as this tension grows or lower prices.

She said: “Why would people pay the same for a virtual book, with none of the graphic design, physical presence, production and distribution costs accepted as part of the printed kind? I always thought that in those early days e-books should have been given away as an add-on to the printed book. That would have made readers feel they were getting something extra as well as ensuring the new format received very wide exposure very quickly.

via Publishing industry at risk from agency model, claims agent | theBookseller.com.