9 Statistics Writers Should Know About Amazon

[Quantum]

Some highlights:

Note: ymmv, especially wrt genre.

1. Amazon’s print book sales grew by 15% in 2016—as estimated by Author Earnings. This gain was primarily driven by Amazon’s own discounting on print.

2. Ebook sales at Amazon increased by 4% in 2016 (again, as estimated by Author Earnings), despite Big Five ebook sales declining. Nielsen’s Jonathan Stolper said at Digital Book World, “Price is the most important and most influential barrier to entry for ebook buyers, and the increase in price [at publishers] coincided with the decrease in sales.” Any talk about digital fatigue, the consumer’s nostalgia for print, or a preference for the bookstore experience isn’t supported by the sales evidence—which Author Earnings’ Data Guy was eager to point out. If print is back, it’s partly because consumers are unwilling to pay more (or about the same price) for an ebook.

6. When it comes to print book sales for the major publishers, Amazon represents roughly 50% of the pie; wholesalers, libraries, and specialty accounts are 25%; Barnes & Noble is in the teens; and independent bookstores are about 6-8% of the print book market.

7. Kindle Unlimited (KU), Amazon’s ebook subscription program, is estimated to represent about 14% of all ebook reads in the Amazon ecosystem (according to Author Earnings). KU costs $9.99/month and is strongly dominated by self-published books—none of the major publishers participate. KU’s biggest US competitor is Scribd.

9. Audible’s customers are estimated to have listened to 2 billion hours of programming in 2016, double the 2014 figure. (Audible is owned by Amazon.) Audiobooks are the largest area of growth for the book publishing industry, and Audible is the No. 1 retailer in the US of audiobooks.

(Published 16 Feb 2017
https://janefriedman.com/9-statistics...)

[Marie Silk]

Thanks for the info, Alex. Only on #7...there are some big time books on KU like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. Maybe publishers are enrolling older titles ?? The exclusivity rule must not apply to them because they are available as ebooks elsewhere of course.

P.S. I really need to stop slacking and get my books on audible!

[Quantum]

Marie wrote: "there are some big time books on KU like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. Maybe publishers are enrolling older titles ?? The exclusivity rule must not apply to them because they are available as ebooks elsewhere of course.

P.S. I really need to stop slacking and get my books on audible! "

oh, that is interesting. maybe they have a special clause in their contract with amazon.

yes, audible, that's what i'm thinking too. my daughter listens to the podcast, Nightvale, and they came out with a book after the podcast became popular. she bought it, of course. so even this kind of "cross-promotion" across different media types can be fruitful.

there's also a podcast created by the reddit r/nosleep. they take the best horror short stories from their subreddit and recreate them in podcast episodes. it's quite popular and the production quality is quite good.

[Philip]

Alex G wrote: "Marie wrote: "there are some big time books on KU like Harry Potter and Hunger Games. Maybe publishers are enrolling older titles ?? The exclusivity rule must not apply to them because they are ava..."

Done one Audible via ACX - my first spy thriller - Enjoyed the experience doing a shared royalty model with the professional narrator. Sales - well not great. The sales match the printed or ebook charts and pick up the same publicity. I did not even get full take up of my free offers! Too much competition.

[Mike]

Alex G wrote: "Some highlights:

Note: ymmv, especially wrt genre.
1. Amazon’s print book sales grew by 15% in 2016—as estimated by Author Earnings. This gain was primarily driven by Amazon’s own discounting on ..."

Interesting, Alex. Re point 2, indeed, traditional publishers' ebook sales are looking flat but that's because they overcharge and people buy the hard copy instead, especially now that they can easily get secondhand copies through Amazon. Ebook sales as such are healthy.

I was annoyed last year when UK journalist Simon Jenkins wrote a piece suggesting ebooks were past their peak because Kindle sales were falling - a totally fallacious argument. For what it's worth, I refuted it here: http://mikerobbinsnyc.blogspot.com/20...