Claude Forthomme's Blog, page 32

Readers vs. Watchers: The Digital Revolution is Not Over

Lately a huge controversy has developed around the theme "Indies are Beating Traditional Publishers", and one publishing guru, Mark Coker,  the father of Smashwords, has loudly predicted that self-published authors will outrun traditional publishers by 2020, see here. Indie authors, carried forward by the digital revolution that has lowered production costs and leveled the field, are in a feisty revolt led by Hugh Howey; find all the rebels on his Author Earnings website here.

This race between indies and publishers, no matter how exciting, obscures something much bigger: the sea change that is investing the entertainment industry as readers lose out to watchers. 

We're into a brave new digital world where the written word is losing out to the image.

Evidence of this vast change is still anecdotal, but putting all of it together, it adds up. 

Take ebook sales. After years of exuberant growth, ebook sales started to flatten out in 2013. I've blogged about this before (see here). At first, I thought it was nothing to worry about: a physiological slowdown that indicated the market had reached maturity, that it was better balanced between printed and digital books (good news for the publishing industry!). But now I'm convinced the situation is actually much more serious than that. 

It's the book market's very survival that is threatened.

Why? Look at what's happening to the entertainment industry and more generally to our cultural life. Particularly noteworthy:

people are about evenly divided between readers and watchers: those were the results of a recent survey carried out in the UK and reported by the BBC (see here) and it's obvious that the divide is very likely to be the same in the US or any other Western country;
the performance of the tv and videogame industry suggests that more and more people watch films and play videogames and less and less people read books. The videogame industry is huge and has become as big as Hollywood. It is projected to grow from $67 billion in 2013 to $82 billion in 2017, a change happening largely at the expense of the movie and music industries (see this interesting article here explaining why this is happening).

TV is no longer an 'idiot box'. The ponderous New York Times itself in a recent article signed David Carr (see here) came out with that arresting statement. Look at what David Carr has to say about TV's "New Golden Age", here's a screen shot of a high point in the article:




What a feast indeed! There's no doubt that TV series, like House of Cards, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones etc are entertaining and well worth watching. 

What is worrisome is that more and more intellectuals who were once upon a time big readers now binge on TV series. I know I have - I recently enjoyed for several weeks the Danish political TV series called "Borgen" centered on a fascinating female politician. My consolation is that it is considered "the hottest show in Europe" (see here). And here's the trailer, you can get it no matter where you live:



In our brave new digital world, the image is displacing the written word, it's as simple as that. 

The ebook has proved to be a neat way to make the written word more accessible to people - on your mobile devices the written word can now follow you anywhere, in the waiting room at the dentist's, on the plane, in the bathroom, in your bed.  

But the written word has to fight against films and music and videogames, a tough fight!

As to the suggestion that Smashwords is a big success and therefore we shouldn't have to worry (see article below), there's no secret: the number of writers who decide to self-publish is increasing exponentially and Smashwords is the platform of choice for them - user-friendly and able to upload  ebooks everywhere, from Apple's ibook store to Kobo to Barnes and Noble (though you still have to upload yourself on Amazon's KDP). 

But please note: Smashwords' success does not translate into increased sales for ebooks worldwide. The two aren't related.


Don't get me wrong. The flattening of ebook sales is not for tomorrow morning, there are still big markets to conquer, in particular India, the country that reads the most in the world, see the reading data here. 

I'm talking about a long-term trend, that is affecting the written word in all its forms, including blogging. It is now well known that blogs based on the written word alone have much less traffic than those lavishly using videos and photos (see tips #9 and #25 in this comprehensive how-to article for bloggers, click here). 

Images win out every time!

The handwriting is on the (digital) wall. This is the end of an era that opened with Cervantes' Don Quixotte in 1605, the first great novel of modern times, and was propelled by Shakespeare, Molière, Voltaire, Dickens, Goethe, Tolstoy, Tolkien and so many fabulous writers over the next four centuries. 

How this new video trend can ever be reversed, I have no idea. 

Any suggestions?

Personally, I do see a silver lining: writers will always have a lot of work on their hands, even in this new image-obsessed world: because the images must tell a story, and writers are the story-tellers par excellence...
++++++++++Win a book in our Scavenger Hunt. 8 books, more than 30 copies total. I'm one of the authors sponsoring the hunt with "Crimson Clouds".  Come and play, click here++++++++++ Related articles Why I'm a little tired of hearing from Mark Coker(bentrubewriter.wordpress.com Hugh Howey Gives Toxic Advice for Self-Publishers(goodereader.com) If the eBook market is Flattening Out Then How Come Smashwords's Revenues Grew by a Third in 2013?(the-digital-reader.com)

Amazon's Latest Gimmick, the Book Countdown Deal: Does it Work?

The idea of a book countdown is fun: set the price at the lowest level allowed on Amazon, 99 cents, and watch it rise each day by one dollar - until it's back to the original price. There is an element of game betting: you, as the customer, have to beat the clock in order to win.

I recently tried it for my book "Luna Rising, the Full Saga", as those of you who receive my newsletter know. I thought that no matter what happened, it wouldn't hurt. This was a book that I had just published at the beginning of the year, a re-edition of an earlier novel (totally re-written and with a new cover), and it was sitting dead in digital dust. It obviously needed some kind of boost. 
Starting Thursday 27 February, the countdown was launched and by Saturday morning March 1st, this is what my book detail page looked like:


[image error]
Wow, it ranked number 55 in the top 100 fiction ebooks in the category..."Metaphysical"! But wait a minute, what on earth is "metaphysical fiction" and who would ever want to read it??

I thought I had used the term "visionary" when I had uploaded my book on Amazon but it seems it goes together with "metaphysical"...I controlled what it was, searching the Kindle Store for "metaphysical fiction" and found over 5,000 titles (see here), ranging from science fiction to black magic, but also world masterpieces, like Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". So I shouldn't complain, I'm in good company! A pity I didn't stay long in the hallowed top 100: just a couple of days...

In a way, "metaphysical" made sense, and I learned right there something about what might sell my book. That's useful, considering it is undoubtedly a hard sell even though it is perhaps one of my best books, mainly because it is "cross genre". It starts out as a paranormal romance and ends as a techno-thriller (!).

In the process, I learned a few interesting things:
Make sure you plan your marketing around it ahead of time. I didn't do a very good job of it, I only put my book up on three sites paying for the ad and as far as I can see, those ads didn't drive any sales. The sales I got seemed to have been triggered by my newsletter; however, this was the first time I used it (if you're interested in receiving it, the sign-up form is on this page, upper right corner - no spam, only information about upcoming deals and events like a new book release). In spite of this, 46.4% almost half the subscribers opened the letter and 3.6% clicked through to the title. Compared to an industry average of a 17.7 % and 2.5% respectively, I suppose I should feel satisfied (though I suspect that writers, once they've got a properly running newsletter, manage to get much higher click rates from their fans than I did, I'm still too new at this).Schedule your Countdown Deal in the middle of the week. Just like the number of views on a blog, your sales inevitably slow down on the week-end as people go out and enjoy life rather than the Internet (I scheduled to finish on a Sunday and that was probably a mistake);Don't forget to tick the UK box otherwise it will run only in the United States. This is very annoying, I didn't see that box, and all my efforts went to nought in the UK. I thought I could start again the following week with another promotion just for my British friends but that is not the case: only one promotion is allowed every three months and I've used up my chance for this 3-month period!Be aware that you won't see what it looks like on your book detail page if you live outside the US or the UK (like I do). You can only follow what happens from your KDP dashboard and of course the (hourly) change in ranking on your book detail page. I contacted Amazon and they told me how I could look at it, by logging out of my account, and re-entering from "outside", scrolling down to the very bottom of the page to find the Amazon US market box and click on it. Sounds easy but...At the bottom of the page you see all the Amazon markets across the world except the US!
The biggest unknown in the Countdown Deal is the fallout: what effect it has on follow-up sales and on your other titles once it's over. I suspect the fallout may be quite large for established writers with lots of fans online; in my case it was limited. Especially if you compare it to the free promotions I did two year ago that triggered thousands of downloads. 

This was very different.The sales were disappointing and didn't continue beyond a few days. Also there was no effect on my other titles.  One unexpected result: it stimulated the sales of the printed version (no doubt why it turns up as #99 in books, see screen shot). What's interesting about that is that the printed version of the book was not under promotion. 

This suggests that:
we're in a very different digital world from two years ago when free promotions drove sales; ebooks no longer sell like hot cakes;the advantage of a Countdown Deal is that it draws attention to the book, regardless of price. It's probably not so much the limited discount that works as the novelty of the formula and the "game" aspect. There is little doubt that promotions centered on giving out free books (or low priced books) no longer work: we've all got our e-readers overflowing with free books. Clearly something else is needed to give a boost to sales. In that respect the Countdown Deal helps. 

Pity it is restricted to the US and UK markets! This is a serious limitation. When will Amazon extend it to other markets where it is present? I have readers in Australia (and other places) who contacted me because they were really annoyed at being cut out.

What is your experience with this new marketing instrument? Did you try it? Please share, I'd love to know how it went for you.

(Photo credit: smartsigns, click here.)


Cover Wars: Be my friend, show a little love! Vote for your favorite book cover but don't forget to vote mine, it's "Crimson Clouds".  Check it out here. I know, they all look great but I rather like mine, hope you do too (grin!)

How to promote your book and win reviews at the same time

Reviews sell books, right? But the problem is to get them. Ads are easy, you pay for them but they tend to be ignored unless you tie them to a promotion, making your book free or at 99 cents for a short period. The grand-daddy of book promoters is of course BookBub, recently joined by EBookBargainUK and EbookSoda, all excellent sites if you want that kind of promotion.

But how about tying your efforts to garner reviews with free book promotions? 

Story Cartel has the answer, to check it out, see here. I thought I'd test it out. I recently joined and here's how my book looks on the Story Cartel site: free digital copies are distributed in exchange for honest reviews , though no one is required to post a review. 

To see the page on Story Cartel, click here
Looks nice, doesn't it? It's sitting there together with related books and a notice clearly indicating how long the offer lasts (at the time of this writing, 17 more days). Actually offers on Story Cartel are meant to last 20 days (I already lost 3 days in telling you about it!). And when the promotion is over, Story Cartel organizes a sweepstake among reviewers and the winners get a free printed copy that I have agreed to provide, in total 5 print copies (offer limited to the US).

So if you enter, you can even get a free print copy delivered to your home!

I don't know how well such a promotion works - I shall let you know asap. If anyone has used it, please leave a comment about your experience! 
And there are already some very positive evaluations of Story Cartel, see here:



StoryCartel course. Build your readership!(bravewriters.wordpress.com) Story Cartel: Free Books in Exchange for Honest Reviews(gwenstephens.wordpress.com)
Cover Wars: Vote for your favorite book cover and don't forget to vote mine, (grin) it's "Crimson Clouds". Check it out here. They all look great (even if I really like mine)!

A Writer's Quandary: To Blog in a Niche or Not to Blog?

Like every writer who starts out, I was told I should have an Internet presence, an easily recognizable brand. That's why I started this blog back in 2009 as a way to brand myself. I also got on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and scores of other sites.
                
On day one, I had one reader visit my blog: my husband. On day two, my kids joined in, I had three readers. Today, 419 posts later, I am nearing the 400 mark of daily visits and 10,000 visits per month. Lately I started a mirror blog on Wordpress with the same posts (see here) because I have followers over there who hadn't realized that my main blog is here. For some obscure reason, the Word Press and Blogger universes are separate.

If I look at my Google stats, I'm read everywhere, from Canada to China, though most of my traffic comes from the States. My bounce rate is very low, time spent on the site is fairly high (5 to 6 minutes) and some 20 percent of my visitors return. Inexplicably, traffic fluctuates wildly, the Alexa ranking can go as high as 2000k and as low 200 k. Still, not too bad, considering a total of more than 150 million blogs worldwide. That mind-boggling number comes from WP magazine, see here, with an estimated 170,000 new blogs added everyday! 

A tsunami of blogs. Such numbers make one wonder whether there aren't too many blogs around...
            
So was it worth the effort? Because, don't kid yourself, to maintain a blog is a BIG effort. Some people have real short posts and can do it everyday.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. I always have tons of things to say about everything and then, there's a bigger problem: like a lot of writers, I don't fit into a mold. Yet, to succeed, you need to do niche blogging. And Google's newly launched "semantic search" system (I posted about it, see here) works best if you blog in a niche and turn yourself into an "expert" with a resulting "author page" that stands out.

If you don't blog in a niche, the danger is that Google bypasses you, your blog doesn't turn up in searches and you get forgotten in your corner. 

That worries me. 


It means that if you want to stand out, Google forces you to stay in your niche. Thinking "out of the box" is not allowed! That's tough for writers (like me) who are broadly interested in the human condition. Posting about all sorts of different subjects weakens your status as an expert: for Google, you can't be an expert in a vast array of things.  

Because Google's algorithms confuse expertise with critical thinking. The two are not the same. You can be an expert in your domain and a very poor critical thinker. The ability for critical thinking depends more on how you appraise a situation than on how much you know about it.

Go tell Google computers!
                
Looking at my blog as a whole, the experience has been positive: my readership has grown steadily overtime and lately I'm getting more and more comments. That's a real satisfaction and I'm thankful to those of you who have taken the time to comment. But I worry. Have I done something wrong? Like any writer, I aspire to get my fiction read by the greatest number. Does that mean I should do like my fellow writers, discuss books and writing problems etc?
                  
The trouble is I don't often feel like "talking shop". My interests are varied and to talk shop, there are plenty of wonderful writers' and readers' communities like Goodreads, Shelfari, TheNextBigWriter, ReadWave, Authonomy etc and I've joined them all, at one point or another.
                  
It all boils down to one question: who should the blog be for? I believe it's a two-way street. A blogger needs an audience. You always write for somebody, to either convince or entertain that person or both. You need to ask yourself what kind of audience inspires you and stimulates you - and write for that audience. Because if you're not stimulated, you can't write. At least, that's the way it is for me. If my blog is not exclusively aimed at other writers  that's because I just can't limit myself to other writers. When I blog, I have in mind  all sorts of people and their problems and not just writers and writing. Sure, writers interest me too. The upheavals caused by the digital revolution make publishing a particularly fascinating subject and I want to know as much as I can about it and share that knowledge. But for me, the world doesn't end there.
                  
Am I wrong? I guess only time will tell...when my blog hits the 10,000 visits a day mark! 

I have a question for you and I'd be grateful if you could drop a word in the comments below. Am I right to go out in all directions or should I focus on a niche and write only about books, the publishing industry, writing techniques? Do you enjoy reading my posts that are never twice about the same subject or would you prefer to visit my blog knowing exactly what you are going to find? As a writer, are you also tempted to blog beyond any given "niche"? After all, writers are observers of the "human condition", and that means their interests cannot be contained in a "niche"...

Photo credit: Visit Carol Manser's post "How to Choose a Good Niche Blog Topic", on My Second Million blog, click here.

Related articles The 15 World Top Websites in Alexa Ranking(savvybookwriters.wordpress.com) How To Drive Traffic To Your Blog In 2014: Sites That Help You Gain Readers(blogs.sap.com) 7 Steps for Building a Profitable Niche Blog(bloggingtips.com)

Ukraine on Auction to Highest Bidder

The European Union and Ukraine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday, the United States offered a $1 billion aid package to Ukraine, today the Europe Union offers $15 billion (see here).

What is this, a new kind of game? Is Ukraine going to the highest bidder?

Putin is likely to react with disdain - but the fact is he is playing in his own backyard (geo-politically speaking) and there’s nothing anyone can (or probably should) do about it. 

In the end, it becomes a “face-saving” game where the solution to the crisis had better be sought at the United Nations rather than letting one super power (the US) or a group of countries (the European Union) strut forward alone, trying to shame Russia. 

The battle with Russia is inevitably going to be David against Goliath , where Goliath in this case will win because of the geo-political aspect (i.e. Russia is playing in its own backyard and will NEVER give up that port in Crimea, its natural door to the South).

In short, moving the problem to the United Nations would mean coming up with a solution that would slow down and water everything down, allowing all players, Putin, Obama, the European leaders from Merkel to Hollande to save face…That’s my two cents to the debate! How about yours?


Related Articles of Interest:

On Boomer Café, from Greg Dobbs who's covered international new with ABC News and  HDNet television’s World Report, click here

If you speak Italian, check Giuseppe Bonanno's Blog, click here

What you learn in your 60s

So much to do these days to celebrate Baby Boomer milestones, from the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show to President Kennedy's assassination. As one millennial, a little hot under the collar, humorously noted in several articles (including here on Boomer Café), right or wrong, it's all about Baby Boomers!

Since the Baby Boomer generation spans 18 years of history (from 1946 to 1964), expect a lot more anniversaries. Furthermore, this year, 2014, is notable in one respect: all boomers, even the youngest ones born in 1964, are passing their 50th year. So now most boomers are facing the second act in their lives. 

Pamela Druckerman, an American journalist and the author of "Bringing up Bébé" (a best-selling book on parenting), just wrote a brilliant article about what the forties decade means to her generation (see here). That inspired me to cobble together what you learn in your 60s as I believe it's high time that some misconceptions about Baby Boomers be dispelled.

So here goes. 
The biggest transition is realizing that you're the "sandwiched generation". In spite of all the hype about how rebellious Baby Boomers have shaped History, the truth is very different. You find you're not into politics and big events. You are responsible for both your old parents and your children. The parents may not be in their dotage quite yet, but they need assistance. The children, in some cases may be still toddlers (as a result of the fashion for late marriages), but for most of us, they are grown-up but not necessarily into the labor market. Actually, with the onset of the 2008 Big Recession, your kids may be home with you and struggling to find a job. As parents, we are happy to have them around, but it's impossible not to worry about their future.It's wrong to view Baby Boomers as a single, homogeneous generation. For those in their 50s today, there is no direct memory of Vietnam, they were small kids when it happened. Some of them don't even want to think that they belong to the Baby Boomer generation (see this rant by a boomer in his 50s). The others who are older were crushed by the war and their world view was changed forever . War veterans are the ones who know in their heart the real, life-changing burden of war memories. In some ways, a Vietnam veteran is closer to a millenial who has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan than to someone in his own generation. Ditto for other countries like the UK, France or Italy that have been involved in wars overseas. You've finally learned to distinguish the good from the bad and you know the distance between the real world and the ideal one. The distance is big and no one can pull a fast one on you. But beware, don't be too dystopian!  There's  a trap awaiting you when you get into your 70s: old men (and women of course) often sound condescending as they tell you about a world conspiracy or disaster that will bring down world order as we know it. There may be no "soul mates", you've known there weren't since your 40s, but you can distinguish between your real friends who will help you and those who won't. This is perhaps the most surprising thing: it's still possible to make new friends in your 60s and 70s. As Pamela Druckerman put it, "you find your tribe" (it's something that starts happening in your 40s) and that "tribe" never stops growing. You learn more about yourself, more than you ever thought possible. The last time you learned so much were was back when you were in your late teens and early twenties. That's exhilarating. And frightening. For us writers, that transition to greater self-knowledge is a fantastic fount of inspiration to write novels (indeed, that's what inspired Louis Begley with his About Schmidt series or my own "Crimson Clouds"). It's also something that Hollywood and TV series tap into (for example "Breaking Bad" or the Danish series "Borgen"). On a light note: Now you can buy those tight jeans, you've learned to control your weight (about time too!)On a yet lighter note: You see the good side of things more easily than before. You're more optimistic (I know I am!). You've learned to appreciate the simple things in life and honest friendship - perhaps that's because now you trust your judgment, you recognize your true friends, and you know you're not going to live forever.In short, you think less of yourself and more of others, now you know how to be happy! What would you add to this list? Please share your experience!

Photo credit: Baby Boomers haven, ThinkPanama.com

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Cover Wars: Vote for your favorite book cover and don't forget to vote mine, (grin) it's "Crimson Clouds".  Check it out here. They all look great (even if I really like mine)!
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Related articles Get over it - baby boomer milestones deserve attention(boomercafe.com) Baby boomers impact the national economy and not always in a positive way(ozarkssentinel.com) How the baby boomers changed the world(arkansasonline.com) I May Be 50, but Don't Call Me a Boomer(nytimes.com)

Simenon, Some Lessons from the Grand Daddy of Genre Literature

We all know that Simenon is the father of Commissaire Maigret, a fat policeman in the French Brigade Criminelle with a penchant for staring down suspects, and that all through the 20th century he was considered a literary phenomenon.

But exactly how phenomenal is not so well known. 

For example, I didn't know that he had written some 250 novels in his lifetime, plus 150 novellas as well as three autobiographical novels. Or that it took him about 10 days on average to write a book. Or that he regularly wrote (and published) three books a year. 

I recently watched on ARTE TV 7 a documentary that cobbled together a series of interviews with Simenon and snippets of the numerous films that were made from his books. 

It was an eye-opener. 

What was nice about this documentary is that you only got Simenon talking about himself and his work, no silly comments from an off-line voice. Simenon even regaled us with a couple of old childhood songs (saying that was the advantage of growing old, you could remember them). He sang in a croaky voice totally out of tune and laughingly admitted to having no ear. 

Here's the link to ARTE if you want to view the film: click here. And I hope for you that the link works - it doesn't here in Italy where I live, I have no idea why. Instead, I found this video on YouTube, done in 2003 by Arte to celebrate Simenon's 100th anniversary (born in 1903, he died in 1989). It  does work and provides a lot of the same info:



Before I get to the gems he dropped about himself, here are some breaking news of my own about Luna Rising, not really a genre novel...Sorry about that Simenon! We are compatriots, I'm Belgian too, but we haven't followed the same path, I don't write detective stories (grin). Actually, my Luna Rising is the ultimate cross-genre novel, starting out as a paranormal romance and ending as a techno-thriller,
when Tony Luna, an American computer whiz kid, finds his start-up under attack from the Russian and Sicilian mafia in an unholy alliance. The stakes rise when the woman he loves is kidnapped in Moscow…(Hello Simenon, here I get closer to you!)

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BREAKING NEWS: AMAZON COUNTDOWN DEAL for Luna Rising, the Full Saga (volumes 1-3) starting today 27 February at 99 cents and climbing by one dollar each day, $1.99 on 28 February, $2.99 the day after etc until it's back to its original price of $4.99. Don't miss out on the deal, get your copy before the price goes up! Grab it here
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Back to Simenon's gems:
Family and religion: By the time he was 12, he realized he couldn't stand his family or the Catholic religion, he saw them all as victims of the system and that was something he didn't want to become, in short, he was (nearly) a born rebel; Politics: He never got interested in politics because he felt politicians didn't have power; the real power in his view, was always in the hands of big corporations and big banks;Writing pulp: Colette was his mentor, the first critic of his works and she told him off for writing in a literary form; "make it simple" she chided him, "no extra words, no unnecessary descriptions, read  pulp fiction!"; he did, he read every cheap book he could lay his hands on, and within months started to produce his detective stories - the Maigret series, some 75 books - saying that they were really easy to write: the plot was pushed forward by the Commissaire himself!  Writing speed: He wrote on an old typewriter, hitting the keys as fast as he could and never going back (in those days, corrections were a time-consuming process): he liked Bach fugues and all his life, wished he could write at that speed, keeping the rythm! Branding and Book Promotion: He launched his first Maigret book through a fantastic PR operation: he rented a theater and threw a huge party in Paris that he called the "bal anthropométrique" asking his guests to put their thumb on real police ID cards (!); it was reported the next day in the Figaro, and voilà, his book became an instant success!Literary Relationships: He didn't like literary types - he felt they were a closed group, a mutual-admiration society that he never wanted to belong to yet he became great friends with André Gide , the grand old man of French letters. Gide astounded him with the first question he asked when they first met: "Where did you first get the idea for your 'personnage'?" Simenon thought he meant "character" and that he was asking him about Commissaire Maigret; but that wasn't the case at all. Gide wanted to know how he, Simenon, had come across the concept of his image - the image he projected in the literary world!In fact, I think that is what is most interesting about Simenon: he is not only one of the founding fathers of genre literature but also a master at "brand" building. 

He certainly does look like everybody's idea of a detective and a writer rolled into one!
(See Photo, credit: Wikipedia)

What all this suggests for today's digital writer is:

1. If you can, don't stay entirely digital - try to create social events in real life with real, physical readers!

2. Pick a persona and stick to it, brand building is a daily job.

3. Read in the genre you've picked to write in and read as extensively as you can;

4. Write fast, write a lot (Simenon was capable of writing up to 80 pages a day) and don't edit anything before you're finished so that you don't lose the momentum.

And one last thing: good luck!

What's your take on Simenon's lessons for fellow writers? And as a reader, do you enjoy him?
 
Photo credit: see Georges Simenon Wikipedia

Is the Amazon Ebook Market Model Broken?

Is Amazon about to drop self-published writers? Is there any reason why it shouldn't if self-pubbed titles clog its Kindle Store, making it look like a hastily published slush pile? After all,  the ebook market is reportedly only worth 7% of total Amazon sales and it's not showing much signs of growing. 

Yes, that's not a typo. Ebooks sales are worth only seven percent of total sales to Amazon. Think of Amazon as a virtual WalMart - in fact, I suspect that is the real goal of Amazon, to become the biggest digital department store in the world. The publishing industry is only a side-show for Amazon.So, if much is wrong with Amazon's ebook market model, it is not likely that Amazon will care. And perhaps that explains the uneven performance of Amazon in foreign markets where it's not the only player in town, by a long shot. For example, it is striking to see how Kobo is ubiquitous in Italy, it has its devices on display in most major bookstores but you don't see Amazon's Kindle anywhere. According to Ebook Bargains UK, Kobo has made many mistakes in expanding abroad (see first article listed below). Maybe so, but it is still doing pretty well...Let's list the challenges facing Amazon:1. the payment system -  Amazon's model for expanding abroad has proved to be antiquated; Amazon has followed the old system of expanding abroad with geographically based "offices/virtual store fronts" rather than going global digitally; this means, for example, that New Zealanders are forced to shop in its Amazon Australia beachhead. Why not have a global easy-to-pay system like Google Play (for example, they very successfully use carrier billing in the Far East)?
2. ebook subscription services and digital libraries: Amazon has ignored this new business model, presumably relying on its own Premium system - but how long will they stay out of that particular game? And if they do go in, how will the Big Five react? It's very likely that they won't like it and could withdraw their books from Amazon's shelves. A conundrum for Amazon.
I'll be honest with you, those subscription services really worry me. I'm speaking of Scribd, and Oyster, the two major subscription services and Overdrive, a digital library. The latter has managed to get one hundred million ebook downloads in 12 years, up to 2012! See here. A huge number.That (to me) is terrifying, the start of a new trend that could change the shape of the book market forever.The problem with an ebook is that it is not an object you hold in your hands. It's nothing, it's like a bubble of soap. You can't feel a liking for it the way you might view an old book as an old friend, sitting there on your library shelf in your home. You don't own it, it's essentially a digital service, a permanent access to a text available up there in the cloud, somewhere on the Net. So why own an ebook at all? Why not pay less and get access to the text for the time you need to read it?
Many authors I know are complaining about a slump in sales. This is anecdotal, I can't prove it. My impression is that the slump which first hit the sales of new, emerging writers in early 2013 has now affected midlist authors (i.e. traditionally published authors that have recovered their rights to their backlist and systematically self-publish those out-of-print titles on Amazon).  These are the very writers who were most successful in the Kindle Store, hitting (at least for a short time) the top 100 rank with every new title they uploaded. They could count on their fans to buy their new titles. Well, it seems they no longer do; 2013 was a stagnant year for many. Where have all the fans gone? Who knows. But the expansion of subscription services and digital libraries surely acts as a syphon on the market. You as an author may get better known to many more readers thanks to such services, but you are also likely to make a lot less money in future. To what extent this will happen cannot be foretold.Let's look at possible solutions.   One thing that could be done is to fix the Kindle Store. And re-organize good gate-keeping systems to help in book discovery and let "the cream rise to the top". For the time being, the way things are in the Kindle Store, the cream cannot rise to the top. And the reason is very simple and can be told in one word: rankings!To understand why this is so, let's look first at what's happened in the environment. Since 2012, the ebook market has changed dramatically. First, the settling of the DOJ case against Apple and the way that has played out seems to have calmed the nerves of the (now) Big Five. They have become more aggressive with their pricing, slowly but surely edging out indies.  Price was the self-published writer's biggest weapon, it no longer is. We all know that "free" doesn't work anymore and I fear that "cheap" doesn't work either. Books under $9 scream out to the readers "beware, this is a self-published work likely to be full of typos and badly structured".
And then there's the matter of sheer volume of published titles. The tsunami of self-pubbed authors has totally changed the environement. I know what I'm talking about, some of my books, like the earlier ones I published are buried under one million books or more! Literally buried under and forgotten. That's because Amazon publishes everyone's ranking. I've complained about this before and done so publicly on this blog only to get comments from indies like "Oh, but nobody pays attention to ranking". That may have been true once but it no longer is. Readers are savvy and they've learned how to navigate Amazon's Kindle Store. Readers do look at rankings, I'm convinced of it. And the theory that "quality books rise to the top like cream" is a non-starter. How can they rise if readers before buying glance at the ranking and decide it's not worth buying because the book is sitting down there at the bottom of the ocean of published books?
In other words, the Amazon environment has become toxic. Even Kobo, the latest one on the Big Boys scene, also exhibits rankings. BIG mistake. Rankings should be reserved for the top 100 selling titles, maybe the top 1000 but no more! Then, and only then, if your book is good, you might have a fighting chance to rise with good reviews...
If you still have doubts, take a look at the ranking of books that you know for a fact are good. I'll do it here with just one book as an example, but do take time to navigate the Kindle Store and you will see. The example I want to use here is Amelie Nothomb's "Fear and Trembling" (see here). Now this is easily a masterpiece of French literature, one of the best books published in the last 15 years. She's a huge success with young adults, hardly your dowdy old writer. And it is probably the best book she ever wrote, lively, fun, suspenseful, not at all a high-brow literary bore. Yet, in the Kindle Store she is sitting at a ranking around the 300,000th range and has only 46 reviews!! This says a lot about the Amazon environment...
Speaking of reviews...What is truly missing is a gatekeeper system to keep out poorly edited books and help readers find quality reads. Amazon regularly makes efforts to improve its customer review system and sweeps out reviews that are deemed misleading (the famous "sockpuppet" reviews). Unfortunately, when Amazon does that, it creates a lot of discontent among writers and doesn't really solve the problem.

Perhaps what Amazon should do is set up a two-tier system, with customer reviews and expert critiques.

Most customer reviews are not professional in the sense that they are not comprehensive reviews touching on all aspects of a book (i.e. character development, plot structure, POVs and writing techniques etc).

They are merely opinions written by readers.

Don't misunderstand me. That is how it should be: a customer has a right to voice his/her likes and dislikes and we authors are very happy when they do, we love to be in touch with our readers! That's one of the best things about the digital revolution: it has given us, writers, the possibility to be close to our readers and that's wonderful. But a customer review is not the same as a professional critique, fully structured and substantiated by evidence and references to literary criteria. 

This suggests that there is space for two different types of reviews, the customer reviews and the literary critiques. And perhaps an online website linked to Amazon should collect all those critiques and list them for each title...It could be a start towards a system to guide readers to the better reads and finally allow the "cream to rise to the top".

Any other ideas?

Photo credit: wikipedia
Related articles Is Ebook Bargains UK Anti-Amazon?(ebookbargainsuk.wordpress.com) Amazon reveals quarter of Kindle ebook sales in US were for indie publishers(theguardian.com) Does Amazon Take Its Customers For Granted?(ebookbargainsuk.wordpress.com)

Beyond the One Percent: Hello 0.01 Percent, Wild!

There is a deeply disturbing story on The Atlantic, told in one single graph:


Yes, the famous One Percent is that bottom line, half asleep, not moving up. The zero.zero One Percent is the one to watch, shooting to the stars. Who are these guys? Mostly CEOs and bankers. Where does their money come from? Stocks. For more: read Derek Thompson's awsome (actually  terrifying) article here.

What does this mean? That income inequality has (1) never been so large and (2) is here to stay. For the first time in American History, the One Percent is joining the ranks of the poor, wow!

Welcome to the 21st Century!

Love in the 21st Century: It is Not What You Think!

Take a look at this witty talk by French philosopher Yann Dall'Aglio - witty is really the right word for it and I promise, you'll never think of love the same way again:


In my opinion, he's right. "Tendresse" - tenderness, a feeling for the other, not for oneself - is the closest thing to "true love".

That's the kind of love I try to explore in my novel "Crimson Clouds", a love that grows in the fertile ground laid down by a lifetime of experience, including all the losses and disappointments.

Your views?