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Buried paragraph at the end of the article that discounts the entire piece (as a piece about readers rather than as a piece about publishers): "It is also poss

by hullo 11y ago

Buried paragraph at the end of the article that discounts the entire piece (as a piece about readers rather than as a piece about publishers): "It is also possible that a growing number of people are still buying and reading e-books, just not from traditional publishers. The declining e-book sales reported by publishers do not account for the millions of readers who have migrated to cheap and plentiful self-published e-books, which often cost less than a dollar."

hga 11y ago
Indeed; in other recent (last month or so) reports that others have mentioned in blog postings, indie e-book sales are skyrocketing. Anecdotally, a number of indie authors are reporting healthy and increasing sales. And of course after the big five (and I suppose others) renegotiated their contracts with Amazon to agency pricing, to raise e-book prices above $10, often more than paperbacks and sometimes more than hardbacks (see other comments in this topic to that effect), their e-book sales, unit and revenue, took a substantial hit.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
Yes. Their sales figures basically ignore any indie book without an ISBN (which is, like, 95% of them, and which are now the majority of sales on Amazon). Ebook sales from major publishers have slipped recently because they've jacked up the price to avoid cannibalizing their print sales. Unfortunately for them, the major publishers don't control the market any more. They (and the NYT) are whistling past the graveyard.
Booktrope 11y ago
Good point. It's a piece about traditional publishers (especially the big 5) not book sales in general. Also buried in the article is head of Kindle ops saying, Amazon's ebook sales are continuing to increase. It's not only possible that ebook sales are going up, there's very strong evidence of this. Check out the authorearnings.com site if you want to see just how fast the ebook market is moving away from traditional publishers to self-publishing and alternative approaches.

by hullo 11y ago

hga 11y ago

Indeed; in other recent (last month or so) reports that others have mentioned in blog postings, indie e-book sales are skyrocketing. Anecdotally, a number of indie authors are reporting healthy and increasing sales. And of course after the big five (and I suppose others) renegotiated their contracts with Amazon to agency pricing, to raise e-book prices above $10, often more than paperbacks and sometimes more than hardbacks (see other comments in this topic to that effect), their e-book sales, unit and revenue, took a substantial hit.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

Yes. Their sales figures basically ignore any indie book without an ISBN (which is, like, 95% of them, and which are now the majority of sales on Amazon). Ebook sales from major publishers have slipped recently because they've jacked up the price to avoid cannibalizing their print sales. Unfortunately for them, the major publishers don't control the market any more. They (and the NYT) are whistling past the graveyard.

Booktrope 11y ago

Good point. It's a piece about traditional publishers (especially the big 5) not book sales in general. Also buried in the article is head of Kindle ops saying, Amazon's ebook sales are continuing to increase. It's not only possible that ebook sales are going up, there's very strong evidence of this. Check out the authorearnings.com site if you want to see just how fast the ebook market is moving away from traditional publishers to self-publishing and alternative approaches.