4 ms·

Independent author John Locke joins Amazon's million-Kindle-seller club

27 points by teralaser 15y ago

StavrosK 15y ago
> Locke makes less money with his 99-cent gambit than he would selling the same number of books with a traditional publisher. It's like nobody has ever heard of a supply/demand curve.
- teralaser 15y ago
  Yes, the article is a bit naive on the economics. There is a couple of similar articles that cover it a bit differently from "unknown author sell 1 million" to the direct announcement from Amazon: http://is.gd/XY8T2y http://is.gd/XY8T2y
- hvs 15y ago
  "Before she became a staff writer at the Times, she was the editor of LAist.com, web producer for the public radio show Marketplace, and a web consultant for the Getty. She is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle." Agreed.
- adamjernst 15y ago
  Well she does say "the same number of books with". It's the implicit assumption that he'd sell the same number of books that is faulty, not the text itself.
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    It's the assumption I'm finding fault with, though. Why include it? It's entirely unreasonable.
scott_s 15y ago
This piece is bizarre because the author never once acknowledges that it's possible Locke could not sell a million of his books the conventional way. In other words, the author never acknowledges that Locke may have made less money with a traditional publisher.
dhyasama 15y ago
Shockingly naive article. "If he sold one million books at $100 each he would make so much more! What is he thinking?" Uh, maybe no one would buy his books if he charged more? Perhaps he's an intelligent man and has experimented with different prices? Perhaps the author of the article should have asked him?
kmfrk 15y ago
>If he sold a million Kindle e-books at 99 cents, he'd clear $346,500 -- nice work if you can get it. But if he were working with a traditional publisher, that $346,500 might be a lot closer to $1 million. If there's an "if" in every one of your hypothetical sentences, it's probably not an argument worth pursuing.
brendino 15y ago
This article fails to bring several factors into its economic model. It should be about incentives and demand elasticity here - the "steepness" of the demand curve. According to the article, he recieves $0.35 from a Kindle sale, and ~$2 from a traditional book sale. In this case, he would need to sell (2/0.35) = 5.7 times as many Kindle books as traditional books to be neutral between the options. To get the equivalent incentive from traditional books, he would need to sell ~175,000 traditional books. Since he offers both physical and Kindle editions for his books, the question becomes, did ~175,000 customers purchase the Kindle book who normally would have purchased the physical book? Probably not, IMO. So basically, it sounds like Locke actually knows what he's doing - he's driven by monetary incentives and his arrangement has more-or-less maximized his proceeds.
hongkonger 15y ago
Was the author employed by a traditional publisher to discredit the Kindle business model?
- fleitz 15y ago
  No, but the PR person who sent in the article probably was.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
billybob 15y ago
This title made me do two double-takes. My first thought: "Are people are buying public domain philosophy works as Kindle books?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke My second thought: "Is somebody writing as Locke as a reference to Ender's Game?"
bcl 15y ago
It will be interesting to see how sustainable his success is. I bought one of his books for $0.99, well below my impulse buy threshold, and found it to be worth about that. It wasn't a really bad book, but it wasn't much better than what you find in a college creative writing class.
- hnsmurf 15y ago
  Have you read Steig Larsson or Dan Brown? Poor writing skills don't disqualify one from selling millions of books at a much higher price point.
UncleOxidant 15y ago
Oh, I was thinking it might be the 17th Century English philosopher.
ShabbyDoo 15y ago
So, is it known for sure that Amazon did not cut him a special deal? It might be rational to incent a "hot" author to offer up a good deal on an exclusive in the Kindle marketplace. Perhaps he got to keep a much higher percentage?
wglb 15y ago
The gatekeepers are angry, and they are experiencing major cognitive dissonance.

27 points by teralaser 15y ago

> Locke makes less money with his 99-cent gambit than he would selling the same number of books with a traditional publisher. It's like nobody has ever heard of a supply/demand curve.

teralaser 15y ago
Yes, the article is a bit naive on the economics. There is a couple of similar articles that cover it a bit differently from "unknown author sell 1 million" to the direct announcement from Amazon: http://is.gd/XY8T2y http://is.gd/XY8T2y
hvs 15y ago
"Before she became a staff writer at the Times, she was the editor of LAist.com, web producer for the public radio show Marketplace, and a web consultant for the Getty. She is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle." Agreed.
adamjernst 15y ago
Well she does say "the same number of books with". It's the implicit assumption that he'd sell the same number of books that is faulty, not the text itself.
- StavrosK 15y ago
  It's the assumption I'm finding fault with, though. Why include it? It's entirely unreasonable.

scott_s 15y ago

This piece is bizarre because the author never once acknowledges that it's possible Locke could not sell a million of his books the conventional way. In other words, the author never acknowledges that Locke may have made less money with a traditional publisher.

dhyasama 15y ago

Shockingly naive article. "If he sold one million books at $100 each he would make so much more! What is he thinking?" Uh, maybe no one would buy his books if he charged more? Perhaps he's an intelligent man and has experimented with different prices? Perhaps the author of the article should have asked him?

kmfrk 15y ago

>If he sold a million Kindle e-books at 99 cents, he'd clear $346,500 -- nice work if you can get it. But if he were working with a traditional publisher, that $346,500 might be a lot closer to $1 million. If there's an "if" in every one of your hypothetical sentences, it's probably not an argument worth pursuing.

brendino 15y ago

This article fails to bring several factors into its economic model. It should be about incentives and demand elasticity here - the "steepness" of the demand curve. According to the article, he recieves $0.35 from a Kindle sale, and ~$2 from a traditional book sale. In this case, he would need to sell (2/0.35) = 5.7 times as many Kindle books as traditional books to be neutral between the options. To get the equivalent incentive from traditional books, he would need to sell ~175,000 traditional books. Since he offers both physical and Kindle editions for his books, the question becomes, did ~175,000 customers purchase the Kindle book who normally would have purchased the physical book? Probably not, IMO. So basically, it sounds like Locke actually knows what he's doing - he's driven by monetary incentives and his arrangement has more-or-less maximized his proceeds.

hongkonger 15y ago

Was the author employed by a traditional publisher to discredit the Kindle business model?

fleitz 15y ago
No, but the PR person who sent in the article probably was.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

billybob 15y ago

This title made me do two double-takes. My first thought: "Are people are buying public domain philosophy works as Kindle books?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke My second thought: "Is somebody writing as Locke as a reference to Ender's Game?"

bcl 15y ago

It will be interesting to see how sustainable his success is. I bought one of his books for $0.99, well below my impulse buy threshold, and found it to be worth about that. It wasn't a really bad book, but it wasn't much better than what you find in a college creative writing class.

hnsmurf 15y ago
Have you read Steig Larsson or Dan Brown? Poor writing skills don't disqualify one from selling millions of books at a much higher price point.

UncleOxidant 15y ago

Oh, I was thinking it might be the 17th Century English philosopher.

ShabbyDoo 15y ago

So, is it known for sure that Amazon did not cut him a special deal? It might be rational to incent a "hot" author to offer up a good deal on an exclusive in the Kindle marketplace. Perhaps he got to keep a much higher percentage?

wglb 15y ago

The gatekeepers are angry, and they are experiencing major cognitive dissonance.