# Oyster shutting down



## G.L. Snodgrass (Aug 12, 2014)

I don't know if others have seen this. Oyster announcing they are shutting down. Another Subscription service closing the doors.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/68130-oyster-is-shutting-down-operations.html


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

Wow! that's big news and bad news.

What other subscription services have shut down?


Any guesses on the reason they are shutting down?


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## Allyson J. (Nov 26, 2014)

I read in another article somewhere that most of the staff & founders had been hired by google to work on google play books. I don't sell anything at Oyster, and I'm all for a bump at Google, but I'm sad to see any competitor of AMZN close.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Oh lord, the Oyster App is a work of art, and I'm going to be so, so sad to see it go if it does.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

Trust Google to buy a service that works and shut it down.

Hopefully this means they can start getting people on Google Play to buy books.

It's a very good sign with regards to Google's seriousness in books.

****
It'd be a very very interesting world if Apple and Google got very serious about books.

There are so many iDevices and Android devices getting added every month that they could really shake things up in books.


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

Gulp. I liked Oyster. Sad news.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I can't see Scribd staying open much longer. I just canceled my subscription and now I'm glad I didn't subscribe to Oyster.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

From 2014:



> There are other options, including Scribd or Oyster limiting the number of books via tiers that a subscriber can have access to in a month (in which case they are no longer unlimited) as well as just embracing the Kindle Unlimited model. Regardless of what they do, they will have to do something. Their current model will drive them to bankruptcy.


http://jakekerr.com/2014/12/30/making-sense-of-kindle-unlimited/


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

I'm a little afraid for the future of Smashwords, honestly.


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## over and out (Sep 9, 2011)

Allyson J. said:


> I read in another article somewhere that most of the staff & founders had been hired by google to work on google play books. I don't sell anything at Oyster, and I'm all for a bump at Google, but I'm sad to see any competitor of AMZN close.


here's a link:
http://recode.net/2015/09/21/oyster-books-shuts-down-team-heads-to-google/


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Wonder if this means Google Play will be starting their own subscription service. If so, I can't see them modelling royalty payments after Scribd's and Oyster's current practices, though.


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## SB James (May 21, 2014)

ireaderreview said:


> It'd be a very very interesting world if Apple and Google got very serious about books.
> 
> There are so many iDevices and Android devices getting added every month that they could really shake things up in books.


This would explain why I do better some months on Apple and Google Play than I do Amazon. So I naturally would like to see even more effort from those two companies, especially Apple.
Very upset to hear about Oyster's demise. They do have a pretty app and a pretty website.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Wonder if this means Google Play will be starting their own subscription service. If so, I can't see them modelling royalty payments after Scribd's and Oyster's current practices, though.


Much like Amazon probably doesn't plan on running KU at a profit, Google wouldn't have to run a subscription model at a profit either. They could very easily pay full royalties in order to smash Amazon's exclusivity requirement.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Briteka said:


> Much like Amazon probably doesn't plan on running KU at a profit, Google wouldn't have to run a subscription model at a profit either. They could very easily pay full royalties in order to smash Amazon's exclusivity requirement.


As much as I'd love to see that, I don't see the upside for Google to do that. They don't have the same breadth of catalog, nor a walled garden to keep their customers inside.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

With this and Scribd purging their romance titles, romance readers who like the subscription model are left with Amazon. I think romance authors will see a boost, at least in the short term.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> As much as I'd love to see that, I don't see the upside for Google to do that. They don't have the same breadth of catalog, nor a walled garden to keep their customers inside.


Google is an advertising company, and the data a subscription service would provide would be invaluable. Trade publishers won't adopt a subscription service that doesn't pay full royalties, and Google probably can't compete with Amazon as a self-published book subscription service. I mean, if they were to start one, they'd have absolutely no choice but to pay full royalties, or they'd have no catalog.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

ireaderreview said:


> Trust Google to buy a service that works and shut it down.
> 
> Hopefully this means they can start getting people on Google Play to buy books.
> 
> ...


According to that article from Re/code Google didn't buy Oyster but in order to hire the talent they have to pay off Oyster investors. So it's an "acqhire" meaning Google wants to hire the talent but doesn't want the company. Probably cheaper than buying the whole company just to get the employees and shut it down.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

This is sad news. I have been letting my readers know my whole series was on Oyster and Scribd. At least my books are still on Overdrive--and genuinely free for readers there.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Alan Petersen said:


> According to that article from Re/code Google didn't buy Oyster but in order to hire the talent they have to pay off Oyster investors. So it's an "acqhire" meaning Google wants to hire the talent but doesn't want the company. Probably cheaper than buying the whole company just to get the employees and shut it down.


Which is really exciting to me. Heck, maybe they hired them just to create a nice reading app for Android because that Oyster app the best on the market. I don't actually think they'll create a subscription service, but any Play love will be great.


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## G. (Aug 21, 2014)

Although I liked Oyster, I have never sold anything there and pulled my books, just yesterday.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Wonder if this means Google Play will be starting their own subscription service. If so, I can't see them modelling royalty payments after Scribd's and Oyster's current practices, though.


If they wanted to they could. Prior to to the 2015 law change while Amazon, Nook, and Kobo all opened offices in Luxembourg to sell to the EU at 3% VAT Google sat in Ireland despite having to charge 23% VAT. They could have set up a Google Ebooks company in Luxembourg, but they weren't in the business to make a profit they were in it to gain data points (aka customers) who might otherwise be exclusive to Amazon. If they thought a loss-making subscription service would keep the data points in the Googliverse they would eat the loss as a full Irish breakfast. Especially as they could open it globally and seal up the data points before Amazon begrudgingly extends KU to more than a few cherished countries.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

That's sad news about Oyster. It looks like all those who argued that sub services are not suitable for books may have had a point.

What's good news is that Google may finally be getting serious about eBooks. Even though digital distribution is new, many of the current practices are proving ineffective and some are hangover's from the old media way of doing things. There is no reason, for example, for there to be a two month gap between a pay period ending and royalties being paid. There's even less reason to pay quarterly.

Google hasn't got the old media hangups and pay royalties a few days after the month ends. If Monday is the last day of the month, you can expect to see your hard earned in your bank account by Friday. Even if you don't live in the USA! 

Out with the new and in with the newer!


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

My books are listed there, but I never sold a book through them.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Briteka said:


> Which is really exciting to me. Heck, maybe they hired them just to create a nice reading app for Android because that Oyster app the best on the market. I don't actually think they'll create a subscription service, but any Play love will be great.


I never used Oyster, but that article was heavy on how the future of e-book is mobile, so that's probably what Google was after.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Wonder if this means Google Play will be starting their own subscription service. If so, I can't see them modelling royalty payments after Scribd's and Oyster's current practices, though.


God I hope not. It's long past time the whole idea of subservices be freethrown into the garbage can of history. The sooner Oyster and Scribd die, the sooner Amazon knocks off the KU BS.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

1) Amazon won't knock off KU.

Amazon values CONTROL more than anything. Kindle Unlimited gives it amazing amounts of control. They can keep all the data for themselves.

2) Google can afford to take losses much more than Amazon. Google has $1.3 billion a month in profits every month. Amazon's lifetime profits are in the $2 to $4 billion range.

3) Apple and Google are dangerous to Amazon not just because of the size of their customer bases. Much more so because they can take losses much more than Amazon. When Amazon has $100 million losses their stock falls 10%. When they have $90 million profits their stock jumps 10%.

Apple makes $3 billion+ each month. It could wipe out Amazon's lead in books if it chose to. I don't think its focused on books much at all.

4) People like to fixate on Amazon and Facebook and Twitter. However, the real money is with Apple, Microsoft, and Google. A lot of the times they don't care about what Amazon etc are doing because a business isn't interesting to AAPL, MSFT, GOOG until and unless it's $1 billion a year in profits.

At some point of time one or more of these companies are going to figure out that a profit focused company could make much more than that from books and publishing. The Big 5 combined make over $1 billion profit a year. And there are lots and lots of ways to make money from the ecosystem (like Analytics and Big Data) that the existing players just don't pay attention to.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Hm. I continue to think both Apple and Google could trounce Amazon on ebooks if they ever got serious about it. First, they're rich. None of those tiny profit margins Amazon runs. Second, as more and more people read on their phones, Amazon is one that will have to convince people to go out of their way to install the Kindle app. In contrast, Google Play is right there on Android phones, as is iBooks on the iPhone. What seems to have held Google back is that they just didn't care about ebooks -- too small potatoes to worry about, beyond providing a basic _something _for shoppers, I guess. Maybe this personnel acquisition indicates a change of heart for Google. I hope so. Having two, much less three, proto-megacorps duking it out for our loyalty might generate some interesting things.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

It's unicorn hunting season.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Wow, a number or readers, especially romance reader just tried out Oyster after the disgusting way we were treated at Scribd. Now this. I just cancelled Scribd, but never bothered with Oyster. 

Don't really care what Google or ithingy does. If I can't read my books on e-ink, I don't care. Heck, I have a android tablet and phone and have the kindle app on there. Never would think of buying from google. Amazon is cheaper overall than both google and istore. 

Well, I got KU for 2 years now, we'll see what happens after that.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

This: Having two, much less three, proto-megacorps duking it out for our loyalty might generate some interesting things

Last time this happened, Apple offered 70% royalties and Amazon matched.

So, increase in royalties from 35% to 70%.

I'm hoping either Google or Apple start offering Authors 90%.

With ebooks what exactly are the stores doing? No rent. No electricity. No Staff.

If they can stream entire HD movies for no charge or a few cents, then why do they need to take 35% on $3+ books and 70% on lower priced books, when a book is just 1 MB in size?


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

And of course this has to happen on the day that I finally "sold" a few books at Oyster, a place where I normally never sell anything, though Scribd has been good to me.

I'm sorry. I fear I killed Oyster.  

I'm not a fan of the subscription model for e-books, though I'd rather have Oyster, Scribd (which at least pay decently) and others competing with Amazon than have just KU left, which both requires exclusivity and pays crickets, particularly if you write at shorter length.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

If Google started a subscription service and modeled it after KU2, I would totally put all of my books in it. Seems like a great way to get around the obnoxious pricing policy they currently have, and the equally obnoxious price-matching at Amazon.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

ireaderreview said:


> Google has $1.3 billion a month in profits every month. Amazon's lifetime profits are in the $2 to $4 billion range.


There is more to business than profits and Amazon has demonstrated its understanding of this right from the start. It took them six years, if I remember right, to show their first profit. They sailed through the dot-bomb that wiped out many online companies. Look at the financials for 2014, Amazon's sales/revenue was almost $89 billion and Google was "only" about $66 billion. Amazon has abundant financial capacity to compete, but nothing is certain in the future. So which company has the best crystal ball?



ireaderreview said:


> With ebooks what exactly are the stores doing? No rent. No electricity. No Staff.


I take it you're not familiar with server farms.  The costs for running a full-fledged e-book ecosystem will be _different_ compared to stocking and selling print books, but I can assure you that it can't be done without abundant electricity, some staff, and some type of real estate cost (rent, mortgage, whatever), along with ample cooling, network infrastructure, and so on. We can't see and touch "the cloud"1 but it's all run by very real computer and network hardware.

Also, it makes no sense to compare the file size of an e-book to the amount of data of a streamed movie, because pricing and policy decisions are far more nuanced than just how many bits go across the wire/fiber. "What the market will bear" will be a key consideration, and the market is largely defined by competition. Amazon has a lot to compete against in streaming video. For e-books, not so much.

1 Personally I dislike the term "the cloud" to refer to network-available resources. I assume the term came from the old network diagram convention of using a little cloud to indicate indeterminate routing between computers and other hardware. As a collective term for network-available resources, it doesn't enhance understanding, it just sounds mysterious and/or of questionable reliability. The lack of understanding is demonstrated by companies being able to sell local backup products using misleading terminology like "personal cloud."


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## 5ngela (Sep 7, 2015)

Even though I am not using Oyster, I am still sad because Oyster is the one whom more or less pioneered ebooks subscription. Without Oyster, I doubt there would be Kindle Unlimited. And I love Kindle Unlimited. I hope Google with Oyster team will make great impact in ebook industry.


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## amdonehere (May 1, 2015)

Gosh, the Amazon hate here kind of surprise me. I understand wanting more platforms and not ending up with one monopolistic company, but so far Amazon has not exactly been bad to authors. I'm glad they offer a self-pub platform and reward writers pretty fairly for it.

For me personally, Google is evil incarnate. I don't use Gmail. I don't use Google as my search engine. I stay away from Google as much as I can. I use Google map only because it's GPS is pretty much the only one that works. I use it for image search, ok I give it to them, their image search is pretty awesome. But I don't know why anyone thinks Google wiping out Amazon would be a good thing. I have every expectation Google will [crap] on authors if they become the largest or only player in town.

I trust Apple more but again, why does anyone think Apple supplanting Amazon would be a good thing? Apple hasn't shown it gave a squat about books. Amazon works at making the system better. If Apple isn't even interested in investing in the infrastructure, why look to them like they may be a savior of some sort?

Yes, more competition is a good thing. But I'm not the slightest convinced competition by another giant company to wipe out Amazon would do any writer any good.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

I'll be the cynic here. I think Oyster's purpose was always to attract VC money until it ran out and/or be acquired. Ditto for Scribd. I don't care who they hire, I'm unconvinced that Google Books will ever get their anterior out of their posterior.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Herc- The Reluctant Geek said:


> That's sad news about Oyster. It looks like all those who argued that sub services are not suitable for books may have had a point.
> 
> What's good news is that Google may finally be getting serious about eBooks. Even though digital distribution is new, many of the current practices are proving ineffective and some are hangover's from the old media way of doing things. There is no reason, for example, for there to be a two month gap between a pay period ending and royalties being paid. There's even less reason to pay quarterly.
> 
> ...


Actually, they just announced that payments will now be made on the 15th of the following month. But still, they aren't sitting on the money and earning interest like Amazon.


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## E.R.Baine (Mar 17, 2013)

> Trust Google to buy a service that works and shut it down.


This is too funny. Yes, that is exactly what google does. A lot of the companies they buy is to strip it for parts and shut down the company.

Classic google.



> Gosh, the Amazon hate here kind of surprise me. I understand wanting more platforms and not ending up with one monopolistic company, but so far Amazon has not exactly been bad to authors. I'm glad they offer a self-pub platform and reward writers pretty fairly for it.


I don't really have hate for Amazon. I have complained to Amazon in the past that discover-ability rate on the site has dropped considerably, as compared to youtube or even facebook. Facebook's discover-ability has fallen because they make it so you have to pay to be seen. But if you play your cards right with facebook or amazon or youtube or with any site you can make it work. Amazon panders to certain groups, certain authors, just like Apple. Visibility is greater for the back-end manipulation on the site. That means that authors, such as myself, have to spend more money into getting noticed outside of Amazon and can only use Amazon and other places as a place to sell the book in a particular format.

It is unfortunate that it has become a channel to sell books and not a place where you can count on being discovered organically, that could also be a testament to the amount of books it has selling all at one time in each category as well and maybe the algorithm can't handle the minute by minute influx of changes of the inputs that it receives. But I don't hate Amazon.

The good thing is that there is a way to make things happen on all these sites as long as we develop our own formula around our own target audience that meshes with our brand.


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

This saddens me - especially coming somewhat on the heels of Smashwords terminating their deal with Flipkart (and verbally conceding the Indian ebook market to Amazon).  Don't get me wrong; Amazon's been very good to me, but at the same time I don't like the idea of all its competitors falling by the wayside. A little healthy competition is a good thing. Oh well... I suppose if it gets too out-of-control the government will step in and break up Amazon like Standard Oil and Ma Bell.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

AlexaKang said:


> Gosh, the Amazon hate here kind of surprise me. I understand wanting more platforms and not ending up with one monopolistic company, but so far Amazon has not exactly been bad to authors. I'm glad they offer a self-pub platform and reward writers pretty fairly for it.
> 
> For me personally, Google is evil incarnate. I don't use Gmail. I don't use Google as my search engine. I stay away from Google as much as I can. I use Google map only because it's GPS is pretty much the only one that works. I use it for image search, ok I give it to them, their image search is pretty awesome. But I don't know why anyone thinks Google wiping out Amazon would be a good thing. I have every expectation Google will [crap] on authors if they become the largest or only player in town.
> 
> ...


It's not Amazon hate, it's hate towards a single company, whatever it is, dominating a single market. There's rightful fear of that because, well, never in history has that worked out well for anyone but the dominating company. Amazon won't be any different.

As to Google, anything you can hate Google for, you can also hate Amazon for. The biggest knock against Google is tracking and data profile building, and Amazon does the exact same thing.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

If Apple wants to be competition, they're going to have to view their store as something other than an accessory to their hardware. Right now, your books are locked and able to only be read on Apple devices.


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## ilamont (Jul 14, 2012)

I am convinced that subscription services are bad for _most_ writers. It is our hard work that makes subscription services viable. Yet Scribd (and until now, Oyster) have targeted readers, and ultimately sought to ensure large payouts to investors, platform owners, and large publishing partners. Authors were treated as an afterthought when they first launched -- there was no information about the payouts for writers, whether they were represented by a big publisher or self-pubbed. Kindle Unlimited has its own flaws, including meager payouts to most authors, a non-workable formula for certain genres (such as children's books), and an exclusivity requirement that promotes vendor lock-in and further hurts competition.

There is a reason why some artists have pulled their content from Spotify, and movie studios and HBO keep their most valuable properties out of Netflix and Amazon Prime: Subscription models devalue content. Unless authors want to end up in a Spotify-style situation, getting scraps while the platform owners, big publishing partners, and other middlemen clean up, I think we need to tread very carefully when it comes to signing up for subscription models ... and demand a prime seat at the table when new services are launched and the deals are being negotiated.


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## LeonardDHilleyII (May 23, 2011)

Gabriella West said:


> I'm a little afraid for the future of Smashwords, honestly.


Yes. Me, too.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

ilamont said:


> I am convinced that subscription services are bad for _most_ writers. It is our hard work that makes subscription services viable. Yet Scribd (and until now, Oyster) have targeted readers, and ultimately sought to ensure large payouts to investors, platform owners, and large publishing partners. Authors were treated as an afterthought when they first launched -- there was no information about the payouts for writers, whether they were represented by a big publisher or self-pubbed. Kindle Unlimited has its own flaws, including meager payouts to most authors, a non-workable formula for certain genres (such as children's books), and an exclusivity requirement that promotes vendor lock-in and further hurts competition.
> 
> There is a reason why some artists have pulled their content from Spotify, and movie studios and HBO keep their most valuable properties out of Netflix and Amazon Prime: Subscription models devalue content. Unless authors want to end up in a Spotify-style situation, getting scraps while the platform owners, big publishing partners, and other middlemen clean up, I think we need to tread very carefully when it comes to signing up for subscription models ... and demand a prime seat at the table when new services are launched and the deals are being negotiated.


Someone always loses with subscription models, either consumers, creators or vendors. In most other places, it's the content creators that lose. So far, with books, it's been the vendors. Amazon can afford to lose because that's what they do, but other companies can't, so they'll fold because they can't pass that loss on to content creators yet. Piracy isn't bad in the book market, meaning trade publishers aren't being forced into subscription services like music and television creators. Trade publishers will pack up shop and leave if the burden shifts to them.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Briteka said:


> It's not Amazon hate, it's hate towards a single company, whatever it is, dominating a single market. There's rightful fear of that because, well, never in history has that worked out well for anyone but the dominating company. Amazon won't be any different.


Bingo. We just don't want Amazon to become _The Great Gatekeeper_, as trade publishers used to be.

Imagine a world where only Amazon sells ebooks, and they suddenly decide they're not going to sell -insert-your-genre-here- any more. Or just ban your account because you publish a politically-incorrect book.

Sadly, no-one else really seems to care about selling ebooks, so there's no serious competition.

As for Oyster, some of us have been pointing out for a long time that these services made no financial sense. Only Amazon can make money from a subscription, because only Amazon can get books into its service while paying authors a pittance. The others had to offer far more money to get the books into their store, which meant they had to charge more or make a loss.


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2015)

Briteka said:


> never in history has that worked out well for anyone but the dominating company.


Never? I mean, I'm with you on the Amazon-shouldn't-be-the-only-big-player thing, but I'm naturally skeptical of blanket statements like this.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Ebook subscription services cannot be run at a profit. It's simply not possible. Comparisons to digital music don't work. Books aren't music. They're not consumed in the same way and what works for one isn't going to work for the other. And people don't go out and buy ebook subscriptions like they do gym memberships after New Year's. That's pure wishful thinking on the part of the subscription services. Any ebook subscription service is going to operate as a loss because the people buying the subcriptions are the ones who'll read a book a day.

It makes sense for Amazon to run KU at a loss because it's their gateway drug. You go in to get a quick read and end up buying a new 55" LCD TV for your mom's birthday present while you're in there.

There is no such incentive for either Google or Apple to run such a service. There's nothing for it to act as a gateway to. "Read all you want for $9.99 so you'll buy a $0.99 song while you're in the store looking for your next read" doesn't make a lot of sense. And even if Google decided for some reason that they wanted to do this, I have serious doubts that they would have the ability to pull it off. They absolutely suck at mass-market software and UIs. They make Apple software ported to Windows look good in comparison.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

KelliWolfe said:


> Ebook subscription services cannot be run at a profit. It's simply not possible.


It is possible. So long as you don't pay the writers.

What's not possible is to pay writers $5 a borrow when readers are paying $9.99 a month for their subscription.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

KelliWolfe said:


> Ebook subscription services cannot be run at a profit. It's simply not possible. Comparisons to digital music don't work. Books aren't music. They're not consumed in the same way and what works for one isn't going to work for the other. And people don't go out and buy ebook subscriptions like they do gym memberships after New Year's. That's pure wishful thinking on the part of the subscription services. Any ebook subscription service is going to operate as a loss because the people buying the subcriptions are the ones who'll read a book a day.
> 
> It makes sense for Amazon to run KU at a loss because it's their gateway drug. You go in to get a quick read and end up buying a new 55" LCD TV for your mom's birthday present while you're in there.


I'm sure there is a way to run a subscription service at least close to break even. But I agree with the larger truth here: books are primarily about selling something else these days. Prime memberships, or iPhones, or Kobo readers. These tech players need to have books on offer so that they have an "ecosystem" but they are only there to sell that ecosystem better. On the one hand that means the surviving players are competing for us, but on the other hand it means that if you don't have something else besides books, it's going to be a hard road (see Oyster, Uncovered Books, and several other app-only readers).


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

There's no reason for it to be that way, though. Selling devices is actually kind of dumb. There is no profit margin on a Kobo or Nook reader. They're usually sold at a loss because the real profit margin - 30-70% - is on the ebooks themselves. Even in the Amazon store the bulk of sales really come from high dollar electronics where the profit margins are razor thin. But ebooks are a freakin' gold mine. They're a lot more expensive than songs, take up essentially no space, and they've got a built-in 30% profit margin on the more expensive side. What's not to love?

I simply cannot understand how B&N/Apple/Kobo/Google don't get this and spend the pittance it would take to put their stores on par with Amazon's. How many businesses can sell a whole store full of items at a 30% profit margin - with almost no up front costs? It's not like they have to buy the books from you first and then re-sell them. They just shave off 30% of each sale. It's the next best thing to free money.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

Where Google can clean up is selling the data of the subscribers' behavior. THAT is very valuable from a B2B standpoint and something I am not aware that Amazon sells or shares. Also, a subscription service would work if content was restricted. If publishers are prevented from putting ALL the books in a series in the program at one time, it would naturally lead to sales. This is how a subscription service SHOULD work, which is why you can get say Season 1 and Season 2 of a show in Amazon Prime or Netflix, but not Seasons 3 and 4. In that case, someone paid $99 a year for the Prime and spent $70 on the other 2 seasons to finish the storyline. Not EVERYONE will do this, of course, it's still the free/low cost sample method of selling. But if your margins are high enough on the purchase items, it doesn't matter.

This is also how I priced my series to accommodate a freebie. My books were all $3.25. So buying books 1-4 cost a reader $13. I made $9.10. Now, book 1 is free, book 2, 3, and 4 are $4.39 - $4.70 and Book 2 is reduced right now to $2.99. Series of 4 books cost the reader $12.08, I make $8.45. I am only losing 65 cents per full series purchase unless a reader buys the boxed set of books 1-4 for $9.99, then I do take a loss, but I also give readers a $2 savings. In other words, I repriced my series to afford a Book 1 free and it hasn't hurt my sales because readers who read Book 1 who like it will buy the rest and those that read Book 1 free and don't like it, well they probably were never going to buy the series in the first place.  

So a subscription service that replaces that first in series free or first few in series free would be a sound business if the program was also selling the remainder books. And, with coupons for subscribers, there is even room to give them a discount on later books in the series like a Book Club membership.


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## erikhanberg (Jul 15, 2011)

KelliWolfe said:


> I simply cannot understand how B&N/Apple/Kobo/Google don't get this and spend the pittance it would take to put their stores on par with Amazon's.


I don't get this either, unless what Amazon's done is WAY harder than it seems. Which actually might be true, now that I think about it, given how badly Apple has managed to do search in the App store.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> I'll be the cynic here. I think Oyster's purpose was always to attract VC money until it ran out and/or be acquired. Ditto for Scribd. I don't care who they hire, I'm unconvinced that Google Books will ever get their anterior out of their posterior.


I'm with you there. It's unicorn hunting time because lots of VCs are calling in their cash.

If Google books adds subscriptions, it'll likely only be as an add-on to an all-in-one Google Play subscription model that would cover some much broader range of content. So they could lose money on books as long as it pulls in sales elsewhere. And consumer browsing and buying data is great for selling ads. But I'm not holding my breath on this.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

erikhanberg said:


> I don't get this either, unless what Amazon's done is WAY harder than it seems. Which actually might be true, now that I think about it, given how badly Apple has managed to do search in the App store.


Except it's not. Basic search really isn't that hard. The fact that Apple, B&N, and Kobo haven't even attempted to implement keyword metadata fields is just laughable in 2015. But even if search is just too hard *whine whine whine*, what about browse categories? Adding those is even easier. Or at least it should be if your developers aren't utterly incompetent.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Edward M. Grant said:


> It is possible. So long as you don't pay the writers.
> 
> What's not possible is to pay writers $5 a borrow when readers are paying $9.99 a month for their subscription.


Yep. It's like all these subscription based start-ups rushed to get going, they received millions of dollars in VC funding, but they forgot that one little monkey wrench in their ROI, paying the writers.


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## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

I never sold a thing at Oyster, but I'm still disappointed by this. The ebook market continues to consolidate, and I wonder who is next.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

KelliWolfe said:


> There is no such incentive for either Google or Apple to run such a service. There's nothing for it to act as a gateway to. "Read all you want for $9.99 so you'll buy a $0.99 song while you're in the store looking for your next read" doesn't make a lot of sense. And even if Google decided for some reason that they wanted to do this, I have serious doubts that they would have the ability to pull it off. They absolutely suck at mass-market software and UIs. They make Apple software ported to Windows look good in comparison.


You fail to understand either of these companies:

Google: the more you are on Google services the more they get your full data rather than the partial picture because you use Firefox or Outlook or Kobo.

Apple: always was and always will be a hardware company; if it would sell more iPads they would do it tomorrow.

OTOH subscription makes little sense for Kobo as set up by Chapters to give book-store chains 10% of the income from a Kobo they sell. Now that its owned by Rakuten, who want to rival Amazon and Alibaba, subscription starts making more sense, depending on what those contracts with the book-store chains say.


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## Not any more (Mar 19, 2012)

erikhanberg said:


> I don't get this either, unless what Amazon's done is WAY harder than it seems. Which actually might be true, now that I think about it, given how badly Apple has managed to do search in the App store.


Search is easy. Google will sell you their search engine cheap and you can restrict it to just your website or domain. I've implemented it for two companies, and it's practically a snap-in app.


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## J.A. Cipriano (May 27, 2014)

The problem any subscription service will face is churn. It's both the problem and the solution, and why those models work well for music/tv/movies, and not so much else. 

A customer needs to churn through content quickly enough for the model to make sense to them, even if they don't actually do it, they need to see the value of it. Most people don't watch that much Netflix, but at the cost of renting a movie for $2 or $3 bucks a pop, even a Saturday lounging around can pay for a Netflix subscription in perceived value. 

People don't read books fast enough for a lot of people to join the service. It changes the value dynamic. A book is $3 bucks but a subscription is $10, and there are more people who will look at it and say yeah I spent $30 in books this month but overall I won't spend $100 a year in books and not join. Even if this is untrue, it feels true. 

This is why Amazon's KU model actually sort of works. they set a pot and distribute out of it accordingly. Any subscription service could say the pot is $x and you get a percentage out of it based on how much content you "sell"

The only problem is that Amazon has all the data,  more money than they need, and they want to win. They still remember being the plucky online bookstore being pushed around by distributors and it has put a chip on their shoulder. Now the tables have turned. It's why they have their own publishing imprints, why they dominate so many book markets (including audio) when it seems easy to compete with them. 

By controlling distribution and content creation they can drive the prices down and this only hurts people trying to compete with them. 

You can't compete with someone who really wants to win when you don't want to win just as badly. At the end of the day, ebooks, hell wholesale product sales, is peanuts to Apple and Google. They are fighting in a whole 'nother war. Yes they could compete, but why? Why really? for funsies? Besides, selling technology where you can set your own price is hugely different to selling on razorthin margins. 

Google and Apple have more money, but they still want to make money. I doubt when you look at the dollars vs potential profit in beating Amazon it becomes really worth it. After all, Google probably has a list of projects a mile deep with suspected roi on them. They apply their limited budget to that list. Ebooks is likely not even close to being on the top of that list. 

Apple makes cool stuff. It's always been their model. There is no "cool stuff" attached to ebooks. They already make tablets and phones. Selling ebooks is probably extra to them, probably barely even a line item. The reason iTunes became what it was was so the ipod could launch successfully. They don't need to do that for books so they won't. If they did, they would, but they don't so they won't. =D


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

KelliWolfe said:


> Except it's not. Basic search really isn't that hard. The fact that Apple, B&N, and Kobo haven't even attempted to implement keyword metadata fields is just laughable in 2015. But even if search is just too hard *whine whine whine*, what about browse categories? Adding those is even easier. Or at least it should be if your developers aren't utterly incompetent.


Ebooks should have their meta data included in them upon creation. The fact that Amazon actually includes a separate field when uploading is one of the things I feel screws up their search results.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Who's going to drop out of KU to join Kobo's $0.05 a page subscription service?


People who want their books to be readable in Ireland, Japan, Australia, South Africa, etc. Currently you use Scribd (which unlike Oyster has always been global) but to be able to read on my lovely Kobo Mini - priceless.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Today I got a book back from the KU jail and used D2D and thought do I tick Oyster. I decided I may as well be in for the last two months and I've never had a borrow from there in the last two years.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> Ebooks should have their meta data included in them upon creation. The fact that Amazon actually includes a separate field when uploading is one of the things I feel screws up their search results.


Keep in mind not everyone creates an ebook. A lot of people upload Word documents. I wouldn't want to worry about Amazon's changing conversion process, but some of them actually put together quite good, if simple, books doing so.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Who's going to drop out of KU to join Kobo's $0.05 a page subscription service?
> 
> Just about no-one.


I would put all my books in if it was non-exclusive and they paid for page reads. Probably won't happen, but 39 books at approximately 2.5 million pages at .00513 - oh yeah, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Course, I'm not in KU, so I don't count. Add Apple and Nook page reads and well...

edit - wrong calculation. Should be 13500 pages. I was thinking words. Even so, I'd go in.


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## TonyWrites (Oct 1, 2013)

I am glad I don't have any books published yet.  I can't see myself trying out a service like Oyster only to A. sell no books and B. have said service be bought out by Google.  Pardon my asking, but is a subscription service even worth it for authors and readers alike?  (I am sad for authors and readers who liked Oyster, though.)


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

TonyWrites said:


> I am glad I don't have any books published yet. I can't see myself trying out a service like Oyster only to A. sell no books and B. have said service be bought out by Google. Pardon my asking, but is a subscription service even worth it for authors and readers alike?


As it stand now, yes. If vendors decide to stop losing money, then no, it won't be worth it for authors.


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## KelliWolfe (Oct 14, 2014)

Briteka said:


> Ebooks should have their meta data included in them upon creation. The fact that Amazon actually includes a separate field when uploading is one of the things I feel screws up their search results.


Seriously? That would make changing keywords a royal PITA. No, thanks. I don't want to have to build and upload new versions of all my ebooks just to play around with my keywords. Especially since I don't necessarily want to use the same keywords on Amazon that I'd use on Kobo and Apple.


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## ilamont (Jul 14, 2012)

TonyWrites said:


> Pardon my asking, but is a subscription service even worth it for authors and readers alike?


For readers, the subscription services are great. More books than you could possibly read for $10 or less per month.

But just like a buffet, cheap "all you can eat" subscription plans require cheap stuff to keep customers happy. The people producing the stuff? Not so happy, for the most part.

There are some writers on this board who are doing well on Kindle Unlimited, but most authors can't generate the volume of page views required to equal what they were doing before. Search for "KU" or "Kindle Unlimited" to see the earlier discussions about this.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> People who want their books to be readable in Ireland, Japan, Australia, South Africa, etc. Currently you use Scribd (which unlike Oyster has always been global) but to be able to read on my lovely Kobo Mini - priceless.


Assuming there's actually a market in those places. I think the thing authors care about more than whether people in those countries can read their books is whether or not the loss of KU revenue will be offset by the revenue from a hypothetical Kobo subscription service. Given my track record on Kobo, I don't see that happening. Unless Kobo completely overhauls its search engine, discoverability will still be a huge obstacle.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Perry Constantine said:


> Assuming there's actually a market in those places. I think the thing authors care about more than whether people in those countries can read their books is whether or not the loss of KU revenue will be offset by the revenue from a hypothetical Kobo subscription service. Given my track record on Kobo, I don't see that happening. Unless Kobo completely overhauls its search engine, discoverability will still be a huge obstacle.


Well Perry you're better placed than most to comment on whether Rakuten can provide a good online shopping experience. Mind you there is a UK store, with Rakuten Kobo providing the books, and I've never used it despite being a UK Rakuten affiliate. I would not have been happy in Cork being in KU as a supplier while unable to use it despite Irish people being able to use the Amazon UK store (and you could always use it with a UK-based bank card). I would like my friends in Ireland to be able to borrow my books and I'll put up with weaker discoverability to get my books there.


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## hunterone (Feb 6, 2013)

Never even heard of it.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

Mercia McMahon said:


> Well Perry you're better placed than most to comment on whether Rakuten can provide a good online shopping experience. Mind you there is a UK store, with Rakuten Kobo providing the books, and I've never used it despite being a UK Rakuten affiliate. I would not have been happy in Cork being in KU as a supplier while unable to use it despite Irish people being able to use the Amazon UK store (and you could always use it with a UK-based bank card). I would like my friends in Ireland to be able to borrow my books and I'll put up with weaker discoverability to get my books there.


Rakuten is not that great of a shopping experience. I use it occasionally, but only when I can't find what I want on Amazon Japan. But there are numerous other problems with breaking into the Japanese market.

For one, Japan is not the technological wonderland it's usually believed to be in other countries. In fact, it's pretty behind most countries with a lot of technology. People here still trust fax machines over email and a surprising amount of homes don't even have computers. Ereaders were only recently introduced here and the market resisted them for a long time because the traditional publishing industry here is pretty monolithic. There's not a lot of entrepreneurial spirit out here compared to other countries, so you won't get as many people trying to self-publish.

More than that, the population is 98% ethnically Japanese and despite years of mandatory instruction, English proficiency is still extremely low in comparison to other countries. Even people who are pretty proficient in English prefer to read books in Japanese. So you're looking at a very small percentage of the population who are interested in English books.

Unless you're translating your books into Japanese, you'll probably make more in a day from KU than you would in a year in the Japanese market.


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## treesloth5 (Dec 11, 2014)

5 years is rather young for an industry that will be around until I die. I think right now the question is building a brand and maintaining a profit, rather than worrying about distributors.


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## Herc- The Reluctant Geek (Feb 10, 2010)

Change is inevitable, especially now that ebooks are becoming mainstream. Five years ago, people were sneering at ebooks and the thought of digital media replacing paper was laughable. Next year, my son is going to a high school that distributes all its textbooks/notes/assignments in digital format. 

It's not surprising that, as ebooks take hold, the original distribution systems are replaced by newer, more appropriate ones. And its no surprise that the growing mainstream nature of ebooks is starting to attract the attention of organizations such as Google. Five years ago, the Kindle was a vanity device and ebooks were a joke. No one's laughing now. They're all too busy reading books on their smartphones.


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## Simply Unbound (Mar 7, 2015)

Mark Coker just posted about this on the Smashwords blog:

http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/09/oyster-and-kdp-select-train.html


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

AlexaKang said:


> Gosh, the Amazon hate here kind of surprise me. I understand wanting more platforms and not ending up with one monopolistic company, but so far Amazon has not exactly been bad to authors. I'm glad they offer a self-pub platform and reward writers pretty fairly for it.
> 
> For me personally, Google is evil incarnate. I don't use Gmail. I don't use Google as my search engine. I stay away from Google as much as I can. I use Google map only because it's GPS is pretty much the only one that works. I use it for image search, ok I give it to them, their image search is pretty awesome. But I don't know why anyone thinks Google wiping out Amazon would be a good thing. I have every expectation Google will [crap] on authors if they become the largest or only player in town.
> 
> ...


I don't think anyone here hates Amazon, except maybe Scribblr. I certainly don't. Love the place. But I do want it to have competition. I don't think Google or Apple is capable of wiping Amazon off the map. I doubt indie books account for more than 1% of Amazon's revenue. Even if Google or Apple took over the entire business, Amazon would tick merrily along selling handbags and little kids' underwear and paperbacks and bikes and Totoro car decals (list drawn from the stuff I've bought from Amazon in the last week). But I doubt Google or Apple would take over ebooks entirely. Either one could probably seize majority market share if they really, really wanted to, but serious readers like the Kindle, and many will stick with Amazon. I would myself.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

puppy.gif said:


> Amazon reaches millions of people a day. Probably billions, I don't know but let's assume it's a lot of people.
> 
> How many readers can you reach with your site?
> 
> ...


Erm . . . billions of people per day? There's only 7 billion in the world. 1 in every 5 people in the world interact with a Google product or service everyday (According to Google in a Wired article last year), so there might be a billion visits per day, that's not the same as a billion people.

I sell novels for $8.24. And $6.99. And a boxed set for $9.99. *I* don't have to sell thousands each month of each book, I just sell a handful each day of each title and that gives me a 4-figure income each month after expenses and taxes.Today, out of the blue, someone bought my latest novella for $3.25 through my Gumroad store. I only pay 5% + $.25 for that, and I now have that customer captured as a paying customer.

The future IS expanding from our mailing lists that we use to drive traffic to Amazon or Kobo or Nook etc and selling directly ourselves. Yes, there are pioneers who have done this for years before us and it was really, really hard once upon a time. But today's ecommerce solutions are so turn-key, even down to helping entrepreneurs with the legalities of tax collection, even VAT, that the next 12-24 months will see authors of all scales reasonably sell directly to customers. And it is a multi-pronged problem, requiring an educated customer base that can understand directions to open files in Dropbox or the Gumroad app or send the file to their kindle or email address, but that customer base exists. It's the same readers who have followed us all on social media since 2011 and figured out how to move their content between their many devices.

And with such low overhead and only paying fees when a sale is made, much like we do on Amazon et al, we don't have to sell millions. We can sell a few dozen a month and start those relationships with customers to build it bigger and bigger each release and each year over year. Eventually, you have a customer base that will protect you no matter what happens down the line. Selling books on the Internet isn't new.  Our insurance policies are paid for in sweat equity.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Never? I mean, I'm with you on the Amazon-shouldn't-be-the-only-big-player thing, but I'm naturally skeptical of blanket statements like this.


Well, I mean organized crime always wins in these cases because they're the 'free market' that traditionally maintained those monopolies. Not so much nowdays in America since politicians play that part now, but that's pretty much why the criminal side of the Tongs exist.

Oh, and the morticians usually had a field day from all the dead poor people/busted unionizers. But these days companies are much more comfortable killing their customers. Then again, that's the domain of car and food companies. It'd be pretty hard for Amazon to actually kill someone since they don't produce anything physical.

I suppose temp agencies will boom once they backstab the indie authors and knock them out of the craft?


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Netflix has some serious problems. It's barely profitable and there are some 'off balance sheet' costs ($10B purportedly for media content - mostly for network content) that would put them at a steep loss.  

The subscription models that are guaranteed not to lose money are the pool-based systems such as at Audible member credits, Spotify's artist compensation model, and KU. In the pool-based approach, the hosting company simply divvies up all the revenues against all the member consumption. The more people consume, the smaller the payout per unit. But it guarantees that the host never carries risk.  The major networks and film studios have been very aggressive at ensuring that this never happens to them in subscription models. That's why Netflix and Amazon are now forced to develop their own programming. 

Elizabeth, I think you're totally awesome. But if Amazon wanted to prevent people from sideloading third party content onto their kindles, they could stop it tomorrow. By having the device, they have the ability to close off independent sales at any time. I suspect that they might be moving this way anyway.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

puppy.gif said:


> Amazon reaches millions of people a day. Probably billions, I don't know but let's assume it's a lot of people.


About 75 million across all domains. Not billions, but still a lot. 
https://www.quantcast.com/amazon.com


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

555aaa said:


> But if Amazon wanted to prevent people from sideloading third party content onto their kindles, they could stop it tomorrow. By having the device, they have the ability to close off independent sales at any time. I suspect that they might be moving this way anyway.


How much of a market share do e-ink Kindles have within the whole spectrum of e-reading anymore?

For people using the Kindle app on their iOS/Android/other mobile device, Amazon cutting off side-loading would just prompt readers to switch from the Kindle app to a different app. Same with desktop software, and in-browser readers. For multi-purpose devices, there are ample alternatives to what Amazon offers. I don't think Amazon would be dumb enough to push people to switch away from their platform when that switch is so easy.

For dedicated (e-ink) readers, that switch is impossible on the device itself... but suddenly removing functionality could result in people abandoning those devices and switching to a multi-purpose device. "Ah, who needs another thing to charge, I like e-ink but I can read on my phone/tablet well enough."

I'd be very surprised if Amazon took such a draconian step as blocking side-loading with so little benefit, especially at the risk of alienating customers who might really want both e-ink and side-loading (and who could then go buy a Kobo e-ink reader instead).

I can see multiple problems with hoping to rely on direct sales, but Amazon interference with side-loading is not something I would worry about. I'd be far more concerned about getting past reader reluctance to engage in a bunch of direct-sale sites instead of one convenient storefront. If someone wants to future-proof against Amazon dominance, start building an RSS-style syndication and aggregation tool that any author can freely join and could be used to aggregate book information from countless direct-sale author sites into a cohesive, reader-friendly interface. (Actually, that could become part of one of my existing back-burner projects. Hmm.)


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Crenel said:


> How much of a market share do e-ink Kindles have within the whole spectrum of e-reading anymore?
> 
> For people using the Kindle app on their iOS/Android/other mobile device, Amazon cutting off side-loading would just prompt readers to switch from the Kindle app to a different app. Same with desktop software, and in-browser readers. For multi-purpose devices, there are ample alternatives to what Amazon offers. I don't think Amazon would be dumb enough to push people to switch away from their platform when that switch is so easy.
> 
> ...


The number of people side-loading stuff onto their kindle is tiny, so is the number of people who own a kindle and have even heard of side-loading or know what it is.

Amazon could stop this and their customer base would barely notice.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

B. Yard said:


> The number of people side-loading stuff onto their kindle is tiny, so is the number of people who own a kindle and have even heard of side-loading or know what it is.
> 
> Amazon could stop this and their customer base would barely notice.


I can see the first part being true but it doesn't answer the question. If e-ink Kindles only represent 10% of the e-reading market -- and if that number isn't going to rise significantly (if at all) -- Amazon cutting off side-loading on those platforms has so little benefit as to not be worth doing. Likewise, in that market share scenario and given that there's no effective way to cut off side-loading on a multi-purpose device, any blocking action would have a trivially small impact. But I don't know what the market share is, which is why I asked. If the e-ink Kindle market still plays a major role (despite what I see as evidence to the contrary just in Amazon's own handling of e-ink Kindles, and devices I see people using), then at least there might be some incentive. At this point I'm just skeptical that any such incentive outweighs the risks.

The second part is not so clear cut. How many readers were _actually_ affected by Amazon yanking 1984 from their devices (it only affected those who had copies that Amazon erroneously sold in violation of the copyright, so most 1984-on-Kindle customers presumably were not affected), versus how many people learned of it and were scornful of Amazon for it? Bad news travels fast, as they say, and there's no telling what kind of response Amazon would see even from people who had never heard of side-loading until the capability was removed.

(This also assumes that blocking side-loading is feasible. Just because Amazon designed and sold the devices and can control _content_ doesn't mean it would be cost-effective -- or even possible -- to make whatever technical changes would be necessary to block side-loading.)


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Crenel said:


> I can see the first part being true but it doesn't answer the question. If e-ink Kindles only represent 10% of the e-reading market -- and if that number isn't going to rise significantly (if at all) -- Amazon cutting off side-loading on those platforms has so little benefit as to not be worth doing. Likewise, in that market share scenario and given that there's no effective way to cut off side-loading on a multi-purpose device, any blocking action would have a trivially small impact. But I don't know what the market share is, which is why I asked. If the e-ink Kindle market still plays a major role (despite what I see as evidence to the contrary just in Amazon's own handling of e-ink Kindles, and devices I see people using), then at least there might be some incentive. At this point I'm just skeptical that any such incentive outweighs the risks.
> 
> The second part is not so clear cut. How many readers were _actually_ affected by Amazon yanking 1984 from their devices (it only affected those who had copies that Amazon erroneously sold in violation of the copyright, so most 1984-on-Kindle customers presumably were not affected), versus how many people learned of it and were scornful of Amazon for it? Bad news travels fast, as they say, and there's no telling what kind of response Amazon would see even from people who had never heard of side-loading until the capability was removed.
> 
> (This also assumes that blocking side-loading is feasible. Just because Amazon designed and sold the devices and can control _content_ doesn't mean it would be cost-effective -- or even possible -- to make whatever technical changes would be necessary to block side-loading.)


I think it's very possible they could stop their android and IOS app from reading any content that isn't directly taken from the store as well. Yes, you could still sell your books for people to read on their various devices as independant e-reader apps would probably pop up, but I can't see Amazon caring.

None of this is really the point though. Although it will work for some, most will not have a readership base that is tech savvy enough to go to a site that doesn't deliver the book in one click, or enough of a fan to go and become tech savvy enough to go to those sites. I'd say the vast majority just couldn't be bothered when there are millions of other books they can just fire right to whatever they are using with no effort.

Amazon have the market right where they want it right now, because they are doing it better than everywhere else. Until that changes, indies are beholden to them.


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## D-C (Jan 13, 2014)

Simply Unbound said:


> Mark Coker just posted about this on the Smashwords blog:
> 
> http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/09/oyster-and-kdp-select-train.html


"Kindle Unlimited strips authors of pricing power and royalty, and will eventually gut the market for single-copy sales at Amazon. In other words, Kindle Unlimited is slowly killing the market for single-copy ebook sales, not just for indies but for all publishers."

I hate to say it, but I agree with Mark. KU is not good for the ebook market in the long term. (And I have books in KU - I have to - otherwise I'm penalised in the rankings).


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

D-to-the-C said:


> "Kindle Unlimited strips authors of pricing power and royalty, and will eventually gut the market for single-copy sales at Amazon. In other words, Kindle Unlimited is slowly killing the market for single-copy ebook sales, not just for indies but for all publishers."
> 
> I hate to say it, but I agree with Mark. KU is not good for the ebook market in the long term. (And I have books in KU - I have to - otherwise I'm penalised in the rankings).


Here's the thing, though--all I ever see Mark Coker do is stomp his feet every time Amazon does anything. But would exclusivity even be an issue if the other platforms were even half as good as Amazon is at helping indie authors find an audience? Amazon is able to pull this crap because right now, the other platforms aren't even trying to challenge them.

Instead of whining every time Amazon does something, why doesn't Mark present some alternatives beyond "go wide and pray"? Why isn't he improving his own site so that a) the design is updated so it doesn't look like it's stuck in the late 90s and b) it's easier to use and provides better discoverability for authors?

If the other vendors had a way to improve discoverability for indie authors and people found they could make just as much if not more by going wide than being in KU, how many people do you think would remain in KU?

Authors aren't staying in KU because they're fiercely loyal to Amazon. They're staying in KU because that's where the money and the discoverability is. Whining about it isn't going to convince them otherwise. You need to put your money where your mouth is and give them an incentive to go wide. Telling them to leave money on the table and just pray that someone somewhere with some clout might chance upon their books when they go wide is not an incentive.


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

555aaa said:


> Elizabeth, I think you're totally awesome. But if Amazon wanted to prevent people from sideloading third party content onto their kindles, they could stop it tomorrow. By having the device, they have the ability to close off independent sales at any time. I suspect that they might be moving this way anyway.


I'd agree with you except um . . no. People can always access their devices if they WANT to. And ebooks are just a file. In order to completely lock a Kindle Fire they'd have to stop all files going to the tablet and that's just not practical. Gumroad HAS an app readers can download just like Kindle and Nook apps and read all of the content they bought direct from authors. They also can read the materials on their computers. They also own the files, which in an increasing climate of NOT owning the files, that means something to some readers. Not ALL readers are going to leave the larger outlets like Amazon, but SOME will. And that's who authors are going to want to capture.

It's like this. I USUALLY shop at the grocery store. Last weekend we were at a balloon festival and I bought $30 worth of beef jerky directly from a specific farm in the craft area. I also bought my daughter a toy that I couldn't get in stores (an inflatable hot air balloon). I spent MORE money than what I would from a traditional store and felt great about it. I knew more of my dollars were going to the creator / independent businessperson and the quality of both the balloon and jerky were high. The boutique business model is viable.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> It's like this. I USUALLY shop at the grocery store. Last weekend we were at a balloon festival and I bought $30 worth of beef jerky directly from a specific farm in the craft area. I also bought my daughter a toy that I couldn't get in stores (an inflatable hot air balloon). I spent MORE money than what I would from a traditional store and felt great about it. I knew more of my dollars were going to the creator / independent businessperson and the quality of both the balloon and jerky were high. The boutique business model is viable.


The big question is though, are you going to drive out to that farm to buy the beef jerky from there every time you want it? Or just get it from the store across the street?!


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## Elizabeth Ann West (Jul 11, 2011)

B. Yard said:


> The big question is though, are you going to drive out to that farm to buy the beef jerky from there every time you want it? Or just get it from the store across the street?!


It's not an all or nothing thing. I mean unless you are exclusive, then yes, readers can ONLY go to Amazon and buy your book. For me, readers can buy direct from me OR they can go to just about any major ebook store and get my books there. I don't need readers locked into ONE way of buying my books.

Again, this is just what works for me. MY experiences and business plans do not include me relying on a single vendor . . . ever. I did try Kindle Unlimited for 6 months when it first came out. I was and am always a cheerleader for its' existence as a discoverability vehicle . . . but at this point I have to leverage other discoverability opportunities, some which are not available unless I am out wide.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2015)

On the internet, the store, the farm, and the roadside stand are separated by a couple of clicks and a tiny fraction of a second.

Sent from the far side of the moon using Tapatalk


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

emilycantore said:


> Sure they can - the KU 2.0 model is precisely how future eBook subscription programs will work.
> 
> Netflix has 65 million customers worldwide. How big is the global eReading market?
> 
> ...


Totally agree with this.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Elizabeth Ann West said:


> It's not an all or nothing thing. I mean unless you are exclusive, then yes, readers can ONLY go to Amazon and buy your book. For me, readers can buy direct from me OR they can go to just about any major ebook store and get my books there. I don't need readers locked into ONE way of buying my books.
> 
> Again, this is just what works for me. MY experiences and business plans do not include me relying on a single vendor . . . ever. I did try Kindle Unlimited for 6 months when it first came out. I was and am always a cheerleader for its' existence as a discoverability vehicle . . . but at this point I have to leverage other discoverability opportunities, some which are not available unless I am out wide.


Fair enough Elizabeth, I definitely think it's a smart move to sell books on your site alongside other vendors, but I can't see it ever being viable to replace them completely.


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## L.B (Apr 15, 2015)

Joe Vasicek said:


> On the internet, the store, the farm, and the roadside stand are separated by a couple of clicks and a tiny fraction of a second.
> 
> Sent from the far side of the moon using Tapatalk


Not if you have to kill the cow and dry out the meat yourself (sideloading) they're not.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

emilycantore said:


> This is precisely it!
> 
> What is an incredible software engineering feat at first becomes a wordpress plugin within a few years.
> 
> ...


Netflix can make a profit because they will eventually pass the loss off to content creators. As it stand *now, Netflix pays for the rights to shows that have already ran. Netflix, in the grand scheme of things, pays content creators very little money, but since it's mostly for old content, it's a bonus for content creators. Once television dies, Netflix will pass that loss onto content creators who will make peanuts, while Netflix makes a profit.

This can't happen in ebooks yet because trade publishers don't need a subscription service to exist, and they will not accept retailers passing on the loss to them, so the retailers are the ones that end up losing money.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Piracy is on the decline? I don't know about that. 

On the subject of growing our business, building a list and engaging our fan base is one of the fastest ways to build. At some point, the list begins to grow exponentially, and can explode sales pretty quickly.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

puppy.gif said:


> Prove it's on the rise.
> 
> You can't equate "a list is good to have" with "you can make a great living using just the list".
> 
> Honestly guys, put some effort into your arguments. I get a little tired of having to scroll through these posts that say nothing.


Excuse me, but we're not saying "nothing." And most of us have put a lot of thought into what we share, and many of us have a fair amount of experience. Marketing is my day job so I happen to know a little about it. One of the companies I worked with several years back quadrupled their revenue in the years. Want to know what one of the biggest drivers of that growth was? A list.

If you don't want to build one, don't. But don't come in here and insult people who are sharing their experience.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Perry Constantine said:


> Here's the thing, though--all I ever see Mark Coker do is stomp his feet every time Amazon does anything. But would exclusivity even be an issue if the other platforms were even half as good as Amazon is at helping indie authors find an audience? Amazon is able to pull this crap because right now, the other platforms aren't even trying to challenge them.
> 
> Instead of whining every time Amazon does something, why doesn't Mark present some alternatives beyond "go wide and pray"? Why isn't he improving his own site so that a) the design is updated so it doesn't look like it's stuck in the late 90s and b) it's easier to use and provides better discoverability for authors?
> 
> ...


Funny, every time I share insight into Amazon's exclusivity strategy and its long term implications for authors and other retailers, someone accuses me of whining. When scientists warn about the implications of climate change, are they whining too? If a doctor tells a patient that their diet, drinking or smoking is going to lead to bad things in the future, is the doctor whining? I spoke out against KDP Select on day one - http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html - and most of what I predicted has happened. And it's only the beginning. Amazon is now working to eviscerate single-copy sales (not something I predicted). They don't want to pay authors and publishers 70% list.

I totally respect the reasons why some authors feel that enrollment in KDP Select is in their best interest. I totally understand that books enrolled in KDP Select will be more discoverable to Kindle customers and sell better at Amazon than books not enrolled. No argument there.

The alternative is not go wide and pray. Many authors are achieving incredible success going wide, and some of them are selling a lot more outside of Amazon than at Amazon. The secrets aren't really so secret (I've been sharing the secrets for years), and it has nothing to do with praying. It's about best practices. What it really boils down to is writing a book that blows the reader's mind, because that's what generates word of mouth. That's what turns a reader into an evangelist. That's what turns your first reader into your second reader. It needs to be a 5-star wow book. It needs a cover that makes an honest and targeted promise to the reader that this is the book that satisfies their aspiration. And there are dozens of other best practices. Not rocket science (well, writing that 5-star wow book is really tough).


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## Gentleman Zombie (May 30, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> Funny, every time I share insight into Amazon's exclusivity strategy and its long term implications for authors and other retailers, someone accuses me of whining. When scientists warn about the implications of climate change, are they whining too? If a doctor tells a patient that their diet, drinking or smoking is going to lead to bad things in the future, is the doctor whining? I spoke out against KDP Select on day one - http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html - and most of what I predicted has happened. And it's only the beginning. Amazon is now working to eviscerate single-copy sales (not something I predicted). They don't want to pay authors and publishers 70% list.


I don't think you're whining at all. You are advising people not to have their eggs in one basket. If an author is totally dependent on Amazon, then he or she must do whatever is demanded of them. You have zero power in that relationship. Amazon controls your visibility, your pricing, and your profits.

If you go wide - and build a readership - you have a bit more power. You're not omnipotent but you are in more control of your destiny. Right now KU is passing out free money. I don't blame people for hopping on board and grabbing up that cash. I know of writers who are making tons of money (10k a month plus) from KU.

However, I hope they are stashing those KU bucks into a savings account. Eventually, the free money train is going to run it's course. When Amazon pulls the plug on that - a lot of people are going to be caught off guard. So yes, make the money. But don't be foolish and expect that it's going to last forever. It's not. Have a plan to go wide. Or experiment with going wide, so that when the hammer drops you can switch things up painlessly. Don't wait for KU3 to trip you up.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Here's the bottom line. It's simple, really. If membership systems increase the total pool of cash available - the total revenue in the system - then they are good. If they don't, they are bad. In the music world, they did the latter, because it didn't turn a bunch of non-music consumers into consumers, it just dialed up their consumption, but with no increase in revenue. We moved people from first buying CDs, to buying downloads, to (hopefully) buying memberships. And as a consequence, the music business went from a $30B annual industry to a $15B industry over the past 20 years.

I personally don't think that book subscription services are going to really grow the number of readers. It might make people who read read more, but they're not going to pay more. So that's less money. Which is bad. Some authors will make a lot of money because they're pulling off the top slice of the revenues. But for most authors, they probably will make less.

fyi here's what Spotify says on their model:

http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify-explained/#royalties-in-detail

They give an example of a typical payout scenario that works out to 0.6 cents per play - and over at Pandora, they (per the statutory royalty board) pay between 0.1 and 0.3 cents per play. So if you are getting in the millions of plays per month, that's a decent living, as long as someone else is paying to promote you to get those millions of plays. But if you are a normal, talented professional musician who is getting thousands of plays a month, it's not sustainable.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

MarkCoker said:


> Funny, every time I share insight into Amazon's exclusivity strategy and its long term implications for authors and other retailers, someone accuses me of whining. When scientists warn about the implications of climate change, are they whining too? If a doctor tells a patient that their diet, drinking or smoking is going to lead to bad things in the future, is the doctor whining? I spoke out against KDP Select on day one - http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html - and most of what I predicted has happened. And it's only the beginning. Amazon is now working to eviscerate single-copy sales (not something I predicted). They don't want to pay authors and publishers 70% list.


Then how come you're not offering more solutions? Many of us are well aware that this is bad for the industry in the long run. But again, in the short term, we have to eat. If the other sites aren't even going to lift a finger to try and compete with Amazon, then maybe the best thing indies can do is leave those sites until they realize they need us to compete. Clearly years of just waiting for them to get their act together hasn't done a damn thing.



> The alternative is not go wide and pray. Many authors are achieving incredible success going wide, and some of them are selling a lot more outside of Amazon than at Amazon. The secrets aren't really so secret (I've been sharing the secrets for years), and it has nothing to do with praying. It's about best practices. What it really boils down to is writing a book that blows the reader's mind, because that's what generates word of mouth. That's what turns a reader into an evangelist. That's what turns your first reader into your second reader. It needs to be a 5-star wow book. It needs a cover that makes an honest and targeted promise to the reader that this is the book that satisfies their aspiration. And there are dozens of other best practices. Not rocket science (well, writing that 5-star wow book is really tough).


"Write a good book, have a good cover" these are obvious things. But no matter how good your cover is, no matter how well-written your book is, it doesn't mean jack if no one can find it. You still have to solve the discoverability problem. Just making a good book is NOT enough to get people to notice you.

"There are dozens of other best practices." Good, then provide me with links to strategies that have worked to help authors who weren't already selling big on Amazon to gain traction on the other sites. How many of those authors first became successful on Amazon and were able to rack up enough reviews to get a Bookbub that then boosted them on the other platforms? I know the SPP guys were in Select for quite some time, back when switching from free to paid rocketed you up the charts, and you can't tell me that wasn't a factor in their success on the other platforms.

I want to be on all the platforms. But I also have to eat. And if you and the other platforms aren't going to help me with the kind of discoverability Amazon can provide, then why should I waste another four years on your sites? Warnings about how the sky is going to fall is all well and good, but I've got bills to pay _*this*_ month. Not four years from now.


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## Ros_Jackson (Jan 11, 2014)

MarkCoker said:


> Funny, every time I share insight into Amazon's exclusivity strategy and its long term implications for authors and other retailers, someone accuses me of whining. When scientists warn about the implications of climate change, are they whining too? If a doctor tells a patient that their diet, drinking or smoking is going to lead to bad things in the future, is the doctor whining? I spoke out against KDP Select on day one - http://blog.smashwords.com/2011/12/amazon-shows-predatory-spots-with-kdp.html - and most of what I predicted has happened. And it's only the beginning. Amazon is now working to eviscerate single-copy sales (not something I predicted). They don't want to pay authors and publishers 70% list.
> 
> I totally respect the reasons why some authors feel that enrollment in KDP Select is in their best interest. I totally understand that books enrolled in KDP Select will be more discoverable to Kindle customers and sell better at Amazon than books not enrolled. No argument there.
> 
> The alternative is not go wide and pray. Many authors are achieving incredible success going wide, and some of them are selling a lot more outside of Amazon than at Amazon. The secrets aren't really so secret (I've been sharing the secrets for years), and it has nothing to do with praying. It's about best practices. What it really boils down to is writing a book that blows the reader's mind, because that's what generates word of mouth. That's what turns a reader into an evangelist. That's what turns your first reader into your second reader. It needs to be a 5-star wow book. It needs a cover that makes an honest and targeted promise to the reader that this is the book that satisfies their aspiration. And there are dozens of other best practices. Not rocket science (well, writing that 5-star wow book is really tough).


I don't think you're whining, but I think there's something you could do to help the situation that you haven't yet put into practice. Add more categories, but make them distinct from the usual genre categories yet still relevant to the reading experience. For instance: sweary, not sweary; serious, funny; highbrow, midbrow, accessible; romantic, non-romantic (it's especially hard for people to find closed-door romance on Amazon at the moment). I'm sure you could think of others. Break out enough of these, and every book could have a category all of its own. 

I really like the search by length filter on Smashwords, and clearly so do Amazon because they copied it for their short fiction section. More categories make a huge difference to visibility for indie authors.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

_I actually wrote this response to Mark Coker's blog post a couple of days ago, but didn't post it there because it seemed too critical for his blog, y'know. And no one here seemed to be talking much about it, so figured it was WHOA. But now that Mark's shown up here and the old arguments have resurfaced, I've decided to go ahead and post. Because I'm with Percy on this... _

So let me get this straight: Every platform that isn't Amazon is truly democratized, with every author getting the same visibility and seeing the same profit, and there is no class distinction. No first class, no coach, no steerage on those non-Amazon trains. Except, of course, for those authors who somehow manage to get those cush banners and prominent placements in iBooks time and time again. Or get Daily Deals and monthly promos at Kobo. Or find their books in Nook First Deals and BN's Saturday emails. Or be offered NDA'd contracts with Google Play and Scribd. If you don't think there's class distinction, you're not looking very hard. Because I've brokered each one of those. I've ridden first-class off-Amazon, and while the ride's quite nice and I have nothing but appreciation for the ticket, and even though the titles under my management made over $100K off-Amazon from July 2014 through June 2015, it still wasn't enough to keep me from hopping aboard the KU train.

_"Obviously, it's a sad day when a promising sales outlet such as Oyster exits the market." _
Because they weren't devaluing books "when the same book can be read for free" the same way KU devalues them, right? Because only Amazon's subscription service can do that? The same way Oyster and Scribd weren't "slowly killing the market for single-copy ebook sales, not just for indies but for all publishers" because I guess only Amazon's subscription service can do that.

_"How can Oyster, Scribd or any bookseller compete when Amazon can pick the pockets of authors and give the savings to readers?"_ 
By evolving, the same way KU just went through its own evolutionary step. The same way Scribd is trying to evolve. Sadly, many evolutionary detours turn out to be blind alleys.

_"The book's list price is irrelevant to Amazon's calculation." _
Do you truly think it was cheap *indie* books that tanked Oyster and is tanking Scribd? Amazon is evolving, and by taking something as arbitrary as list price out of the equation, they're democratizing the process, not punishing it. The exact same novel I priced at 99¢ in KU1 and praised for making $1.35 for a borrow instead of 35¢, I can at a whim reprice to $4.99 in KU and make $3.00 for a complete read and damn KU for paying me 50¢ less than a sale. So yes, when list price is arbitrary, taking its irrelevance out of the equation is a hallelujah moment. More importantly, possibly a *sustainable* moment.

_"Kindle Unlimited pays authors by the page, and at a rate that typically works out to only a fraction of the 70% list KDP authors get for single-copy sales."_ 
Then color our catalog that's mainly novels atypical. Full reads of 90% of our catalog result in rates that so far work out to MORE than 70% of list. The other 10% aren't far behind. But again, list price is arbitrary.

_"Authors and publishers who refuse to make their books exclusive to Amazon are on the train too. They don't sell as well as the first class passengers."_ 
Opinions are nice. Proof is better. And statements that don't contradict your thesis are better still. Reread the quote in the paragraph above where the claim is that KU pays out pennies on the dollar. Now, how do you resolve the dichotomy between how poorly KU pays and how KU authors still sell better?

I hang with plenty of authors who aren't exclusive to Amazon who sell there just fine. Just as plenty of authors who are in KU still struggle to sell a handful of books a month. The KU ecosystem is no different from the rest of the store or from any other retailer. It's all a competition for visibility and discoverability. Non-KU books do not get punished, but KU books do get rewarded (that's quite an important distinction) ... but they ONLY get rewarded if they can get discovered. Simply throwing a book in KU doesn't magically shower that book with borrows. But what KU does do is provide a secondary sales channel within the ecosystem for added opportunity to be discovered. If you prove you can compete, you get rewarded.

Case in point, we had to fight for visibility in KU. The first month in we saw little increase. But we went in with a plan. Five days of marketing kickstarted our visibility and jumped our profit by $12K+ over average over the last 30 days. We'll goose it again in a week and see if we can top that for the next month. With all the rep support and the pretty banners and the other in-store promo we received from the other stores, we never achieved a $12K increase in 30 days in all the off-Amazon stores put together.

And for all that, we're still only riding in coach on the KU train. Those in first class are laughing at *us*.

Could KU become a train wreck at some point? Absolutely. But until then, we're making more money via KU that would tide us over the traction hump on the other sites should we need to go wide again. And I'll remind you that a lot of folk who were wide who are going into Select are doing so precisely because they weren't able to gain traction wide. If KU folds and they have to go wide again, they haven't lost _anything at all _on the other sites if they had no traction there to begin with.

I'm an advocate for doing whatever works for each author's particular situation. And KU is NOT right for everyone or every book or every situation. But Mark, seriously, a lot of your statements of "fact" about KU are coming out of left field. It's really hard to build a credible argument on an erroneous base. If your argument holds up, though, it will hold up just as well against reasoned and demonstrable facts as it will against dubious statements loaded with bias and spin.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Perry Constantine said:


> Then how come you're not offering more solutions?


Ha! If I were God you wouldn't have these challenges. I'm just one person. In the absence of my godlessness, you're on your own. I and others give you the tools, the rest is up to you.



Perry Constantine said:


> Many of us are well aware that this is bad for the industry in the long run. But again, in the short term, we have to eat. If the other sites aren't even going to lift a finger to try and compete with Amazon, then maybe the best thing indies can do is leave those sites until they realize they need us to compete.


If you leave the other sites they die slow painful deaths. I work with these other stores daily. They're fighting the good fight and working hard for indies. Indies who've maintained full distribution for the last four years are much less likely to be affected by the KU apocalypse some writers are experiencing. These writers are diversified. Every week these other retailers are doing stuff for indies. I see it because I'm actively involved in the merchandising and promotion of our titles at the other retailers.



Perry Constantine said:


> "Write a good book, have a good cover" these are obvious things. But no matter how good your cover is, no matter how well-written your book is, it doesn't mean jack if no one can find it. You still have to solve the discoverability problem. Just making a good book is NOT enough to get people to notice you.


A lot writers will read this advice and think, "Oh yeah, that's obvious. I do that." The trick is to be more self-aware. If readers aren't giving you solid 4.5 or 5 star reviews, it's a message there's room for improvement. Every writer has room for improvement. This business requires constant evolution and iteration. There's no single magic bullet.



Perry Constantine said:


> "There are dozens of other best practices." Good, then provide me with links to strategies that have worked to help authors who weren't already selling big on Amazon to gain traction on the other sites.


For the last seven years I've been sharing this stuff with anyone who cares to listen. On the blog, in my infrequent email alerts, Smashwords Site Updates, my presentations on Youtube and at conferences and Slideshare. You can read my book below, the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success. It's free. And I'm just one person, just one opinion. There are a lot of other smart people sharing best practices. I learn what I share from our authors. Our authors teach me. 



Perry Constantine said:


> I want to be on all the platforms. But I also have to eat. And if you and the other platforms aren't going to help me with the kind of discoverability Amazon can provide, then why should I waste another four years on your sites? Warnings about how the sky is going to fall is all well and good, but I've got bills to pay _*this*_ month. Not four years from now.


I totally appreciate that. It's important to be careful not to confuse discoverability with the bigger challenge here. Even with the best stores (among which Amazon tops the list), discoverability will become a bigger and bigger challenge. There are simply too many high quality books out there competing for too few eyeballs. At the risk of sounding trite and oversimplifying, if your next reader doesn't help you reach your next reader, then that's the bigger problem. Very tough nut to crack, word of mouth.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

MarkCoker said:


> Ha! If I were God you wouldn't have these challenges. I'm just one person. In the absence of my godlessness, you're on your own. I and others give you the tools, the rest is up to you.


That's an incredible cop-out. Not all tools are of equal value. The tools provided by Amazon are clearly superior to alternatives for many authors, as evidenced by sales volume and revenue. In this thread there have been comments about how Smashwords is long overdue for updates. Without putting the tool-use or book-quality blame on users/authors, "how come you're not offering more solutions" _by improving Smashwords_? What are _you_ doing to evolve Smashwords to enhance competition against Amazon and provide a better tool to authors? (Blog posts don't count, that's talk and not action.)

Personally, I'm wide on everything but _No Fanfare_, which I specifically published to experiment with KU (but only one person has read it that way, so KU is definitely not a magic bullet for discoverability). I have only one title on Smashwords and am not motivated by the site to add any more. I also wasn't planning to address the side issue of your comments to and about Amazon, but your repeated finger-pointing at authors ("write better books" and "use tools better") without answering to the weaknesses of Smashwords motivated me to respond.


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## 75814 (Mar 12, 2014)

MarkCoker said:


> Ha! If I were God you wouldn't have these challenges. I'm just one person. In the absence of my godlessness, you're on your own. I and others give you the tools, the rest is up to you.


Like what? Widgets? Lot of good that'll do me.



MarkCoker said:


> If you leave the other sites they die slow painful deaths. I work with these other stores daily. They're fighting the good fight and working hard for indies. Indies who've maintained full distribution for the last four years are much less likely to be affected by the KU apocalypse some writers are experiencing. These writers are diversified. Every week these other retailers are doing stuff for indies. I see it because I'm actively involved in the merchandising and promotion of our titles at the other retailers.


They're doing stuff for a small group of indies. For every Joanna Penn or Platt/Truant, there are hundreds of indies whose books are sitting in a dark corner of those stores gathering dust. Month after month, year after year. The other platforms are only interested in giving specialized treatment to those writers who don't need their help.

I also tried to seek out help on those other platforms. I emailed Kobo Writing Life, inquiring about the Free First In Series that Mark Lefebreve advertises and says all you have to do is email them. The response I received? "Fill out this form" with a link. I filled out the form, and on the form was a disclaimer that said "if you are selected to be included in this promotion, we will not inform you."

Well gee, that's so helpful.

It's no big surprise why these authors have given up and gone into Select. It's because in Select, their books are actually making money. It's because in Select, their books are actually being seen by readers.

Way I see it, authors who aren't already best-sellers have two options:

1. Go in Select and build an audience and reviews.
2. Use those reviews to get a Bookbub and go wide.

The other stores are dying a slow death? Know what my response to that is?










What good are the sites if I can't even find my own books on them, let alone readers? If they were serious about competing, then they'd do something to solve the discoverability problem.

And let's be realistic here. We're not talking about mom and pop indie bookstores here. We're talking about Apple, Rakuten, and Google. Three of the biggest corporations on the planet. It's great your heart bleeds so much for them, but would be nice if it bled at least half as much for the indies who follow your advice and end up struggling.

When the non-Amazon stores suffer because they aren't willing to improve the discoverability system, it's Amazon's fault. It's not the fault of those stores for not building a better product, it's Amazon's fault.

But when indies come to you and say they've followed your advice and can't gain any traction, your response is a shrug and "well, it's probably your fault."


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> _I actually wrote this response to Mark Coker's blog post a couple of days ago, but didn't post it there because it seemed too critical for his blog, y'know. And no one here seemed to be talking much about it, so figured it was WHOA. But now that Mark's shown up here and the old arguments have resurfaced, I've decided to go ahead and post. Because I'm with Percy on this... _
> 
> So let me get this straight: Every platform that isn't Amazon is truly democratized, with every author getting the same visibility and seeing the same profit, and there is no class distinction. No first class, no coach, no steerage on those non-Amazon trains.


I didn't say the other stores aren't without their class distinctions. Others are happy to provide perks for various reasons. Usually those reasons are merit- and performance-based. None reserve their best tools for exclusive authors.



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> I've ridden first-class off-Amazon, and while the ride's quite nice and I have nothing but appreciation for the ticket, and even though the titles under my management made over $100K off-Amazon from July 2014 through June 2015, it still wasn't enough to keep me from hopping aboard the KU train.


You do good work. I've got nothing but respect for what you've achieved.



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> _"Obviously, it's a sad day when a promising sales outlet such as Oyster exits the market." _
> Because they weren't devaluing books "when the same book can be read for free" the same way KU devalues them, right? Because only Amazon's subscription service can do that? The same way Oyster and Scribd weren't "slowly killing the market for single-copy ebook sales, not just for indies but for all publishers" because I guess only Amazon's subscription service can do that.


There are two types of devaluation: 1. Devaluation in the eyes of the consumer, where they're trained to think books are worth less than what the author/publisher thinks they're worth. 2. Devaluation in terms of what the author/publisher is paid.

Big big difference between the Oyster/Scribd model and the KU model. While all three allow books to flow unfettered and feel like free, Oyster and Scribd have natural checks and balances built into their business models to serve as checks against devaluation. Namely, if they allow too much consumption for the given subscription fee, the spigot is ultimately turned off if the sub service can't turn a profit. Oyster is turning off. Scribd throttled back on romance, and has said they will explore tweaks to get the model right. If Scribd can't get the model right, they'll fail too. They're taking in $8.99 in subscription fees each month, so in the aggregate they can't allow more than about $12.80 worth of books to be consumed (assuming their cost is 70% list, $12.80*.7 $8.99) without bearing a loss. Realistically, if they want a 30% margin like other retailers (30%*$8.99 = $2.70 = 30% profit), it means they can't allow more than $8.99-$2.70 worth of reading at Scribd's cost, so that $6.31 in reading cost to Scribd works out to books with an aggregate list price of $6.31/.7 = $9.04. So there you have it, a natural check and balance. For Scribd to survive, they can't allow aggregate readership to over-consume, meaning Scribd can't sustainably offer readers more than $9.00 worth of reading each month if it wants to build a sustainable business.

In many ways, KU is a superior model from the business-owner's POV. Amazon decides what authors are going to earn for each page *after* the monthly subscription fees are collected and known, and then can allocate the pool without breaking the bank. And if we assume $1.35 per book equivalent was approximately what worked for Amazon's model, it's great for authors of books priced under $1.99 but horrible for books priced $3.99 and up. For these higher-priced books, it's a cut. Obviously, the true amount of the cut, or even the existence of a cut is potentially nebulous because there are other benefits for the author that don't cost Amazon anything like giving the book higher sales rank. But from a reader POV, they can consume a lot more books in KU if those books cost Amazon less than what its other subscription competitors much pay. And then Amazon also subsidizes the "feels like free" for Prime members.



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> _"Authors and publishers who refuse to make their books exclusive to Amazon are on the train too. They don't sell as well as the first class passengers."_
> Opinions are nice. Proof is better. And statements that don't contradict your thesis are better still. Reread the quote in the paragraph above where the claim is that KU pays out pennies on the dollar. Now, how do you resolve the dichotomy between how poorly KU pays and how KU authors still sell better?


I think as a data point, the Author Earnings reports have shown that books in KDP-S have an advantage over books that aren't. I would expect that. And then look at how the books are merchandised to understand how Amazon is encouraging readers to consume via KU rather than doing single-copy purchases, and rather than purchasing non-KU books. Amazon is carving out a section of their massive ebook catalog, anointing it as privileged, and then helping those authors make up lower per-unit royalties in the form of higher volume and other perks. And I think it's fantastic that most of your books are earning more than the 70% list. Assuming your works are longer?



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> I hang with plenty of authors who aren't exclusive to Amazon who sell there just fine. Just as plenty of authors who are in KU still struggle to sell a handful of books a month. The KU ecosystem is no different from the rest of the store or from any other retailer. It's all a competition for visibility and discoverability. Non-KU books do not get punished, but KU books do get rewarded (that's quite an important distinction) ...


If Amazon wanted, they could make the same great tools that are exclusive to KDP-S available to all KDP authors. The higher 70% royalties worldwide, the free days, the borrows, the sales rank advantages for borrows and the increased visibility that brings both for more borrows and more single-copy sales. IMHO, that's a form of punishment for the authors who don't go exclusive. They don't get the same tools and benefits.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

locking topic -- discussion has strayed _very far_ from Oyster and it's woes.

Those of you who wish to continue discussing things with Mark may do so at one of his sites, I'm sure.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi, folks--

after discussion, we've decided to reopen the thread.

Let's keep it civil, OK?  We want to keep the thread open.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

Crenel said:


> That's an incredible cop-out. Not all tools are of equal value. The tools provided by Amazon are clearly superior to alternatives for many authors, as evidenced by sales volume and revenue.


Mods feel free to delete if this is straying too far off topic. Totally disagree on the cop out statement, but I do agree not all tools are of equal value. And I think Phoenix made a good case for how it's not just about the tool, it's how you leverage it. If KDP-S works for you, that's great, and I don't question that. Do what works for you. It works from some but not all. It's the same situation with wide distribution. We've got many authors who use our distribution tools to hit national bestseller lists, while at the same time there are authors who sell virtually nothing. Credit for our bestsellers goes to the authors because the tools alone didn't make them a bestseller. Good tools only enhance the underlying potential of the author's books.



Crenel said:


> In this thread there have been comments about how Smashwords is long overdue for updates. Without putting the tool-use or book-quality blame on users/authors, "how come you're not offering more solutions" _by improving Smashwords_? What are _you_ doing to evolve Smashwords to enhance competition against Amazon and provide a better tool to authors? (Blog posts don't count, that's talk and not action.)


I'm not blaming authors for book quality or tool use. It's great to seek out tools that give you advantage (every author should do this), but let's not lose sight of the author's personal responsibility. Tools enhance great books and great marketing and great best practices. We're going way off topic here since I thought the topic was Oyster, their business model and their KU competition, but since you asked... Smashwords has been innovating non-stop ever since we opened up in 2008. We're a distributor. We were probably the first to strike perma-free pricing deals for our authors at the multiple major retailers, the first after the Big 5 to negotiate our authors agency pricing terms at B&N, Kobo and Sony, the first or among the first to open up library distribution to indies at OverDrive (20,000+ public libraries) and Baker & Taylor Axis 360, and the first or among the first to offer indies preorders and then assetless preorders. The assetless preorder capability - the ability to set up a preorder 12 months in advance without the final ebook file or cover - is a huge innovation announced two months ago after over 12 months of live testing and development. Smashwords is unusual in that we also operate a store. It's not our primary focus, but instead is a vestige of the first year of Smashwords before we decided to focus the business on distribution. Even though it's not our focus, the store itself offers many innovations that stand to this day, and we've continued to enhance it over time. It offers the industry's highest royalty rates (up to 80% list, even often for 99 cent books if the overall order is around $10 or more); coupon codes for custom promotions; perma free pricing without restrictions; reader-sets-the-price pricing; self-serve interviews; DRM-free books; Dropbox integration; generous author-controlled sampling; enhanced series metadata to improve series discovery; book search filtering by word count; drill-down filtering into hundreds of categories; the ability to filter by sales rank, latest released and price points; attractive widgets for embedding on websites and blogs; multi-format ebooks supporting all devices; same-day and next-day consolidated sales reporting with pretty at-a-glance charts for iBooks, B&N, Kobo, OverDrive and the SW store. And we're not done. Just in the last week we launched an "Also Recommended" feature that offers readers context sensitive recommendations. It's like also-boughts but with some other awareness built in. We also create a lot of free promotional opportunities for our authors at the retailers and at major conferences. So when anyone asks what Smashwords is doing to innovate, I can only scratch my head. We're never standing still. We're always pushing the envelope to deliver our authors more tools, faster deliveries, more sales outlets, better communications and more advantages. Here's a good bulleted summary of the Smashwords service: https://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Crenel said:


> That's an incredible cop-out. Not all tools are of equal value. The tools provided by Amazon are clearly superior to alternatives for many authors, as evidenced by sales volume and revenue.


That's just plain untrue.

Every single thing Amazon trades exclusivity for (except the dubious 'benefit' of being in a sub service) is _worse_ than those provided by other sellers.

Free days - permafree

Countdown - Everyone else allows quick price changes while Google and DTF allow strikethrough sale prices.

Ads - literally any other ad service performs better.

Pre-orders (not Select-only) - No one else has a lock-out penalty.

The only benefit to Amazon is that it's bigger. They aren't offering anything special, let alone superior. And the visibility boosts only 'work' because of the artificial downward pressure they put on older book rankings and the artificial weight borrows have in said rankings.


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## sela (Nov 2, 2014)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> _"Authors and publishers who refuse to make their books exclusive to Amazon are on the train too. They don't sell as well as the first class passengers."_
> Opinions are nice. Proof is better. And statements that don't contradict your thesis are better still. Reread the quote in the paragraph above where the claim is that KU pays out pennies on the dollar. Now, how do you resolve the dichotomy between how poorly KU pays and how KU authors still sell better?
> 
> I hang with plenty of authors who aren't exclusive to Amazon who sell there just fine. Just as plenty of authors who are in KU still struggle to sell a handful of books a month. The KU ecosystem is no different from the rest of the store or from any other retailer. It's all a competition for visibility and discoverability. Non-KU books do not get punished, but KU books do get rewarded (that's quite an important distinction) ... but they ONLY get rewarded if they can get discovered. Simply throwing a book in KU doesn't magically shower that book with borrows. But what KU does do is provide a secondary sales channel within the ecosystem for added opportunity to be discovered. If you prove you can compete, you get rewarded.


I know a lot of authors who are in wide distribution and are doing just fine. Like top 5 romance novels fine. On a regular basis. Some authors do better in KU and prefer the ease of use over going wide and struggling to gain traction, while others do better in wide distribution and are more interested in getting the largest audience and hitting lists, etc. than the ease of being with one vendor. As long as there are huge indie authors doing well in wide distribution and huge indie authors doing well in KU, the two will remain viable options. I don't see the successful indie authors leaving wide distribution for the attractions of KU's payout per page read. They have existing fan bases and can rely on them to keep their business humming along.

Like everything, there are really successful indies in and out of KU. Most authors will struggle to sell books for a variety of reasons -- quality, appeal, genre, covers, metadata, visibility, etc. They will be the ones who are more likely to be drawn to KU because of its benefits. The already successful will have an easier time gaining traction in wide distribution and being visible DESPITE KU.

In the end, it's a tough decision and it seems like a tired truism but each author has to look at their own business and make decisions based on what's best for them.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> If you leave the other sites they die slow painful deaths.


Sincerely, I do not believe indies being in or out of these stores will affect their long term future one tiny bit.

B&N has no hope of ever being a significant player in ebooks again. Their only advantage was back in 2009 where they could have leveraged customer fear over the concept of ebooks to push people to a vendor that had a local physical presence. They sort of did that, but they didn't build on it, and when they announced they were getting out of the Nook business and then took it back, they shattered any confidence people had in them. They need to put their retail on a better footing, which from my view is primarily about figuring out which of their territories can actually support those superstores and to seriously consider smaller stores along the old Walden-Books model.

Kobo? I don't know if they make enough in non-English markets to guarantee their future. Their devices are great, but their storefront is terrible and they have almost no presence in the US. It's not going to get any bigger.

Apple is going to succeed because they control the phone and music markets and depending on whether they can get the providers to agree to streaming, may be a significant player in multichannel a year from now. Books? They're the most successful store other than Amazon, but they view it as a sideline to sell phones and tablets.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Mr. Corker I think you have done a bang-up (good) job over there at Smashwords and I would love to discuss much more about discoverability. But back to the original Oyster shutdown thread, wasn't the basic problem that their business model was unsustainable? The models that work are the "pool of revenue" models, which is how KU works, Google Play's subscription model (for music), Spotify, Audible, etc. For authors, the question is how can one make a living in the pooled revenue model, because the results in other markets has been pretty dismal. The interesting thing on the music side however is that none of the membership programs are exclusive on the artist side. That's basically a non-starter.

There's a good article on this whole topic here by Mike Shatzkin:

http://www.idealog.com/blog/what-oyster-going-down-demonstrates-is-not-mostly-about-the-viability-of-ebook-subscriptions/

Oh, and I got some iTunes Match (remember that?) revenue the other day for three plays of a track on an audiobook of mine. It was 0.4 cents.


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## treesloth5 (Dec 11, 2014)

The biggest aspect I looked at really is at is the 80/20 rule, and how you can get more out of specific fans that are into your work if possible and reasonable. For example, selling a t-shirt and that t-shirt is an advertisement that they pay you to wear. It's things that like I think there's not much innovation on yet, but also because this medium is text rather than visual based as with some webcomics.


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

What we should really get compensated on is how much other stuff our readers buy on Amazon. When I bring you a customer, Amazon, I should get compensated for the incremental value of that customer to your business. My specific, high value, high roller customers.


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## MarkCoker (Feb 15, 2009)

555aaa said:


> Mr. Corker I think you have done a bang-up (good) job over there at Smashwords and I would love to discuss much more about discoverability. But back to the original Oyster shutdown thread, wasn't the basic problem that their business model was unsustainable? The models that work are the "pool of revenue" models, which is how KU works, Google Play's subscription model (for music), Spotify, Audible, etc. For authors, the question is how can one make a living in the pooled revenue model, because the results in other markets has been pretty dismal. The interesting thing on the music side however is that none of the membership programs are exclusive on the artist side. That's basically a non-starter.


Yes, the sustainability of their model was always the biggest cloud hanging over Oyster. Oyster tried to pay authors and publishers close to what those authors and publishers would earn as if their book were sold at retail. So the danger in their model was that subscribers would over-consume, like gluttons at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and effectively eat them out of house and home. Scribd is also following a similar model with the desire to pay publishers what they'd earn at retail. I should say that's not necessarily the desire of Scribd and Oyster to pay retail-level rates to publishers, but it's the model publishers (and Smahwords as well) required of them in order for us to agree to distribute our books to them. Smashwords provided both of these services a critical mass of titles (200,000+) to help them get started. It was my hope that they'd both promote our low-cost titles (including 50,000 titles priced at free) to their readership because our lower cost titles would provide more hours of reading at less cost to the subscription service, and more reading pleasure for the buck to readers. Both services did a lot to support these titles, but I think they could or could have (since Oyster's soon to be past tense) done a lot more. Indie titles were treated as ugly stepchilden in their marketing (they'd brag about their big publishers they had on board but seldom bragged about the indie titles, even though indies were the lynch pin by which their models could work). Scribd is now the most prominent survivor among sub services that pay authors/publishers full rates. Scribd had to cut out most of their romance titles a few months ago because romance authors were reading too much - http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/scribd-cuts-romance-catalog.html - but I expect they'll figure out a way to bring many of these titles back because that's their stated goal. It'll require tweaks to their model, and probably more sophisticated merchandising so lower-cost indie titles are pushed more prominently. I think Scribd can pull it off. They're larger and have more funding behind them and a more established business than Oyster had, so they have more runway to tweak and iterate their business model until they get it right. Amazon's KU model is a pool-based model, where authors are paid a prorated share from a shared pot of money based on readership. Amazon KU is Scribd's biggest competitive threat because KU has a lower average cost per title (and can always maintain this since Amazon's payment levels per page are discretionary), which means KU is in a position to provide more reading hours than Scribd. To each competititor's shared benefit, each has a completely different catalog of titles, so we might see islands of subscription-accessible content emerge.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

It is beyond me why people keep saying Nook is a dead end and you can't sell anything on Kobo. My sales for this year so far tell a different storyt:

Amazon-16415 
Nook-3406  
Kobo-1759 
D2D (Apple)-3693  
Google Play -356 

9214 (56%) sales at other stores is nothing to sneeze at and the percentage keeps climbing. 

If a book is selling well at Amazon (out of KU) then the problem with the other stores is marketing, not the stores. I never have a problem with customer service and each of them bends over backward to help me when I have a question, problem or a suggestion. 

As for subscription services, this whole thing is my fault. I just got into Scribd when it booted my romance books back out and again into Oyster, what a month or so ago? Apparently I have more power than I thought.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> That's just plain untrue.


A quick response, since this thread (unlike countless others here) is under a must-stay-on-topic cloud: I agree that some features on other platforms may be superior, but I wasn't talking about how nice a service is to use, I specifically referred to the metrics that count for anyone treating their writing as a business, i.e., sales volume and revenue. Having nice features won't pay the bills if they don't lead to sales. Unless you can show me that more than half of indie writers are earning more _away from_ Amazon, my statement is not "just plain untrue." You dismiss the size advantage but it didn't happen by accident and Amazon's "feature" of having that massive customer base -- and _leveraging_ it to maximize discoverability -- outweighs annoyances like delivery charges, exclusivity, no direct permafree setting, etc.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

The size advantage comes from having been an online bookstore and a digital distributor for nearly two decades. Seriously, I bought MP3s from there when Napster was still worth using.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Martitalbott said:


> It is beyond me why people keep saying Nook is a dead end and you can't sell anything on Kobo.


Because it fits their person narrative by validating their own choices.

That's why BN's been 'dying' for three years.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> Because it fits their person narrative by validating their own choices.
> 
> That's why BN's been 'dying' for three years.


Nope, it's because plain and simple--the numbers back it up.
Data Guy and others have fairly well validated that, at least in the US, Amazon owns close to 80% marketshare. 
Does this mean that you can't, for whatever reason, skew differently? Of course not. We're talking about overall numbers. If you somehow have a good foothold on one of those other platforms, your numbers specifically could skew 80% non-Amazon and 20% Amazon.

That would not change, in any way shape or form, the fact that the overall numbers show that Amazon owns the vast majority of the US ebook market. When it comes to non-US markets, its true that Kobo and others may do a bit better. But in general, the non-US markets (especially non-English markets) are still smaller markets, and I don't see them making up for that 70-80% stranglehold that Amazon has in the biggest ebook market right now.

Also, my Amazon UK sales are larger than Nook and Kobo and iBooks combined.

And I sell (comparatively to other authors) quite well on Nook and Kobo.

Personally, I've had difficulty generating momentum at iBooks, but Apple is the only platform that seems to me to be gaining ground or at least threatening to gain ground on Amazon.

Anyone pointing to personal anecdotal numbers is missing the bigger picture anyhow (including me). B&N has released figures that show their sales are decreasing year on year in the ebook sector. Data Guy has stated that his analysis points to Nook having less than 10% of the market and Kobo I believe being at somewhere around 5%.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

People here are complaining that it's hard to sell on ibooks, Google play and kobo. Who says they want indies to sell well on their platforms? We know a few things after seeing Amazon and the Big 5 war for 5 years. 

Amazon is great for indies. Big 5, bookstores, ibooks, nook, kobo etc are great for trad published writers. They are two different markets and they have now effectively been divided. 

Amazon tried and did not succeed in getting trad published writers to jump ship and join Amazon's camp. I think this has to do with the fact that publishers are supported by the bookstores and bookstores see Amazon and ebooks as a mortal danger.

We have a duopoly at the moment: Amazon, indies, ebooks on one side, Big 5, bookstores, print books and trad published writers on the other side.

Best selling indies like Hugh Howey and Amanda Lee will probably make more money signing with Big 5. The rest of the indies who make 10000 and less a month are better off with Amazon. Actually only Amazon allows small indies to live, because the Big 5 would have already stopped publishing your books if they weren't bestsellers.


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## Marti talbott (Apr 19, 2011)

Vaalingrade said:


> Because it fits their person narrative by validating their own choices.
> 
> That's why BN's been 'dying' for three years.


It's his data or mine. I prefer mine. Let him convince everyone to pull their books from Nook or not even try to sell there, more money for me and the rest of us having success. Tired of the nonsense.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

The thing is that all of us are different. Some of us get good sales at B&N, Kobo or any other vendor deemed dying.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Martitalbott said:


> It's his data or mine. I prefer mine.


What about Barnes & Noble's?

[quote author=Barnes & Noble on 9 SEP 2015]The NOOK segment (including digital content, devices and accessories) had revenues of $54 million for the quarter, *decreasing 22.4%* from a year ago. For the quarter, *digital content sales declined 28.0%* to $37 million and *device and accessories sales declined 6.2%* to $17 million.[/quote]
http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/press_releases/9_9_15_bn_2016_q1_financial_results.html (emphasis mine)

It's one thing to recognize that you're seeing acceptable revenue from the NOOK platform _currently_. It's another thing entirely to ignore published facts from the most authoritative source and to assume, by ignoring those facts, that what you are currently experiencing _individually_ is a relevant indicator regarding the future of the platform.

But we're supposed to be discussing Oyster, and maybe the subscription model, which (AFAIK) has no connection to the NOOK (or Kobo) platforms....


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## TonyWrites (Oct 1, 2013)

Simply Unbound said:


> Mark Coker just posted about this on the Smashwords blog:
> 
> http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/09/oyster-and-kdp-select-train.html


That article was very informative, as were the opinions posted in the comments section below it. Thank you for sharing.


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## Speaker-To-Animals (Feb 21, 2012)

> It's one thing to recognize that you're seeing acceptable revenue from the NOOK platform currently. It's another thing entirely to ignore published facts from the most authoritative source and to assume, by ignoring those facts, that what you are currently experiencing individually is a relevant indicator regarding the future of the platform.


You'll also find similar articles with roughly 25% drops for 2014 and 2013. Over time that means sales have dropped by more than half at the same time the market for ebooks was expanding. Also note that digital content is decreasing faster than device sales, means either buyers aren't using the tablets for reading or they're installing another store's app to read.


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## stoney (May 24, 2015)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Also note that digital content is decreasing faster than device sales, means either buyers aren't using the tablets for reading or they're installing another store's app to read.


Anecdotal incoming -

This reader finds it to be true. I'm not going to buy a reader when I can put apps on my phone to read any form available, and have at my fingertips a way to convert one form into another. So I get my books in whatever form I happen on for a good price (but never _through_ an app), convert if necessary, and sideload onto my phone to read on the apps available.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Speaker-To-Animals said:


> Also note that digital content is decreasing faster than device sales, means either buyers aren't using the tablets for reading or they're installing another store's app to read.


Another anecdotal bit: Three of my kids (older teens/young adults) have NOOK tablets. Last I checked, none of them have _ever_ bought a NOOK book. They don't even like e-books and strongly prefer paper -- and that sentiment is a) shared by their peers that I've talked to and b) potentially relevant to the future of e-book subscription services.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

*************


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> ...indies would see steady or upticking sales, and the quarterly report would still note it as a loss.
> 
> Basically, in the corporate world, ebook PRICES matter, not volume.


And since revenue is critical to keeping the lights on, what indies might see (increasing volume) is not as relevant to the long-term health of the platform. Using the example of buyers picking up three indie books for $10 instead of 1 trad book for $14, that's still $4 less that the company has to pay for its overhead. Some people -- including in this thread -- have expressed a belief that there _is no overhead for e-books_ but that's unrealistic (to put it politely); running an e-book ecosystem requires resources that don't come cheap.

Those revenue drops recently reported by B&N are large, and they've been looking at dumping the NOOK platform ("spinning it off into its own company") for... over a year? I don't remember when that announcement came out, but it seems like it was around this time last year, or a little earlier. One way or another, the writing is on the wall for the NOOK, no matter what any indie sales might look like today in individual volume or revenue. The only real hope for the NOOK platform is if B&N does something radically different, whether that means spinning it off into something that can truly compete with Amazon or at least taking a fresh new approach -- maybe including a subscription service -- that pushes them ahead rather than persistently trailing behind.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> A couple of points. I'm not saying these apply, just saying that there are several influencers regarding earnings reports that have to be considered.
> 
> 1) We know the AAP reported a 10% decline overall in trad ebook sales over the 2nd Quarter-ish (2015). Most likely due to agency pricing at Amazon kicking in. As ebook prices have gone up on Amazon, have they been going up on other retailers as well, resulting in fewer ebook sales at Nook? And does the decline through August at Nook signal a further decline for the trad industry as reported via AAP (which still has to report out for June, July and August to be compared to BN's Q1 2016 report)? And is the leading indicator for the decline already seen due in large part to Nook's declining numbers, or is the Nook's decline a factor of the larger market? I think we need to see some more trending before we know for sure.
> 
> ...


Ebook sales at Nook declined 20% in 2014, and were essentially flat in 2013 (with steep declines in devices). They grew substantially in 2012.

To me the pattern is clear. They lost the device battle in 2013, and have been losing the digital sales war ever since, with steep losses every year since that can't be explained away by agency pricing.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

And anecdotal from me, we have five Kindles in my house between myself and my husband. I hate reading on my phone or computer and far prefer e-ink. I don't even read on my Kindle Fire, I just use that as a tablet and to stream video and music direct from Amazon Prime stuff while working out. I also use it to play my Audible audio books.  I do probably 80% of my online shopping on Amazon, including a lot of grocery shopping. That will probably go up once Amazon Now gets into more zip codes (I'm a mile outside of their current zone in my city, sigh). Why do I love Amazon and my Kindle(s)? Because they deliver what I want at good prices in a way that I want it. Someone else comes along and does that, I'll switch to them. I mean, I used to use AOL for my internet way back when, now I have FIOS. AOL is pretty much gone, but I still have access to the net. I'm still as a customer/consumer getting what I want delivered to me. Tech changes, businesses change. That's life. How we deal with it? That's on us. 

Oyster is gone. All I can speculate from that is the pay same as sale model didn't go so great, the biz was in trouble, and the people there jumped to better jobs at Google. I don't think there is enough information to really draw too many conclusions.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Crenel said:


> Those revenue drops recently reported by B&N are large, and they've been looking at dumping the NOOK platform ("spinning it off into its own company") for... over a year?


I guess you are not well up on corporate governance. They have a relatively prospering physical book chain and a digital business struggling to maintain a challenge to Amazon since the launch of Select, but made worse since the launch of KU. So here's the skinny:

1. You separate out the more successful part to make it look an even better bet for the stock market and so you increase the company valuation.
2. You hive off into a wholly owned company the weaker performing part of the business so that it can be managed by digital specialists and now people serving time in the combined company in the hope of getting a plum job on the physical chain side.
3. The separate company is a solid business going through a difficult set of market circumstances. If it was dying you would just kill it off as a drain on profits and share value. By hiving it off (after buying out Microsoft's share) you say that it has a future, either to sell off as Chapters did with Kobo, or as the backup if the physical store results take a nosedive.


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## TheGapBetweenMerlons (Jun 2, 2011)

Mercia McMahon said:


> 1. You separate out the more successful part to make it look an even better bet for the stock market and so you increase the company valuation.
> 2. You hive off into a wholly owned company the weaker performing part of the business so that it can be managed by digital specialists and now people serving time in the combined company in the hope of getting a plum job on the physical chain side.
> 3. The separate company is a solid business going through a difficult set of market circumstances. If it was dying you would just kill it off as a drain on profits and share value. By hiving it off (after buying out Microsoft's share) you say that it has a future, either to sell off as Chapters did with Kobo, or as the backup if the physical store results take a nosedive.


That's a nice story, but what does it have to do with Barnes & Noble? They dropped their plans to spin off Nook Media, including the NOOK platform. It's still a subsidiary -- technically a "separate company," but it was that when Microsoft bought into it, long before they said anything about spinning it off. Instead they spun off the college part of Nook Media into Barnes & Noble Education Inc. They made no change to the NOOK platform ownership structure "after buying out Microsoft's share."



Mercia McMahon said:


> I guess you are not well up on corporate governance.


If you say so....


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## Magda Alexander (Aug 13, 2011)

drno said:


> Amazon is great for indies. Big 5, bookstores, ibooks, nook, kobo etc are great for trad published writers. They are two different markets and they have now effectively been divided.


Amazon is great for indies, but so is iBooks. They have all kinds of promotions and work hard to include indie authors. In the past six months, they promoted the first book in my Storm Damages series as well as the entire series, and made the second book in the series a five-star romance. They attend conferences and talk to indie authors about what they can do to promote you. I not only met with them at the RWA conference but attended an author dinner. They very much WANT to promote indies.


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