The 12 trends
Mark Coker is the founder of Smashwords, a self-publishing and ebook distribution platform based in Los Gatos, a town southwest of San Francisco with a population of 30. Los Gatos is also home to Netflix, the company that is leading the world towards streaming.
Smashwords is one of the most interesting realities of new publishing, born out of nowhere around the Kindle. He's also one of the best observers to scrutinize the future of this brand new sector of the book industry. Every beginning of the year Mark Coker posts on his blog, hosted by "The Huffington Post", the forecasts on the book industry which in 2015, Mark tells us, will see a slowdown in growth with risks and opportunities for authors and all the players of this industry. The scenario, however, will not remain immobile and we will have some interesting developments. Here are Coker's 12 predictions. It's just speculation, but Coker usually gets it right because he's in the right place and observes so much.
1. More and more authors will choose self-publishing, thus strengthening the movement of independent authors.
2. The market share of self-publishing ebooks will grow.
3. Screen readers will continue to grow, but at a slower rate than in the past.
4. 2015 will be a stagnant year for revenue for self-published and traditional authors.
5. Competition from traditional authors against self-published ones will increase as a result of a more aggressive pricing policy by traditional publishers.
6. Large publishers will step up their use of free content.
7. The free will lose its effectiveness and its influence will decrease among self-published authors.
8. Many independent authors will leave the field due to financial results below their expectations.
9. Time management by the authors will be a decisive fact. Authors will need to focus on writing and put other time consuming activities on hold.
10. The new rules on the payment of VAT in Europe will amortize the sales of ebooks in the old continent by bringing less money into the pockets of the authors who will have to absorb the cost of the VAT which everywhere is higher than the 3% of Luxembourg which is the VAT that until December 31, 2014 it applied to ebooks purchased on Amazon.
11. Amazon will use Kindle Unlimited to pay authors less. Despite this curtailment, independent authors will not abandon the programme.
12. There will be a return to the fundamentals of writing: in 2015, in order to be bestsellers, authors will have to follow precise and verified rules of conduct. Let's dwell on these last two points to deepen them again according to Mark Coker's vision.
Kindle Unlimited (KU)
Whatever one thinks about Kindle Unlimited, it is a fact that streaming is something that will bring about a revolution in the book industry. Today, many authors are complaining of a substantial decrease in revenues, while others are convinced that KU helps to expand the reader base. KU will have a massive effect on the 2015 situation. Unlike competing services, such as Oyster and Schrib which allow authors and publishers to set the price and receive a fixed share for each ebook deemed read (Smashwords reserves a 60% share for ), KU draws its resources from a common fund and pays authors not on the basis of the sale price, but compensates them based on the number of readers in relation to the size of the fund determined by Amazon from month to month based on the books that are eligible to be considered read. It is a complicated mechanism to understand, because it is not transparent. It's like Amazon telling authors who have sold a book, "I'll decide how much to pay you in a few weeks."
This wouldn't be a problem if Amazon were a willing partner who is serious about paying publishers and authors 70% royalties as usual. But is not so. As of November 2014, Amazon paid just $1,39 for each ebook that met the reading requirements regardless of the book's page count or price. $1,39 is a great markup if the book costs 99 cents (a 99-cent book sold on Amazon earns a 34-cent royalty). If, on the other hand, the price is $3,99 and the standard royalty is 70% or $2,80, then KU halves it from 70 to 35 percent. Now on KU the royalties of authors and publishers are in fact 35%.
KU is the terminus of the royalty distribution agency model for Amazon. As it will be recalled, the agency model was the crux of the dispute with Hachette, one of the major traditional publishers. The agency model requires Amazon to pass over 70% of the sale price to publishers without being able to make discounts unless authorized. The KDP self-publishing platform is equivalent to the agency model with the difference that Amazon can discount the price to match the lowest price on the market. With KU this model disappears because the core of its raison d'être, i.e. the price of the book, becomes irrelevant in the calculation of royalties. Furthermore, Amazon takes the liberty of paying authors less than 70% in royalties.
By putting KU on a fast track, Amazon is disincentivising customers from buying individual ebooks. Since there are 700 titles on KU, even the most voracious reader has a million fewer reasons not to buy a full-price ebook. For price-conscious readers, a $2,99 or $3,99 ebook is expensive when they can read it (or similar) for free under their monthly subscription. The KU catalog consists almost entirely of titles from independent authors or publishers who join the KDP Select program with an exclusivity clause. Without the support and support of independent authors, KU would not exist. Will independent authors step back in 2015 and say no to KU? While a whole legion of authors are unhappy with the way things are going, I'm sure the authors won't abandon KU. So far, the many doubts about the dangers of exclusivity have been put aside and independent authors have continued to join the program. Even if 100 authors decide to retire, Amazon would still have the critical mass needed to give readers a huge choice to join KU and stop them from purchasing individual ebooks anymore. It's a fact that many indie authors undersell, and there's no doubt some of them will fall for the KDP Select siren and decide that making $1,39 or less is better than nothing. This state of affairs will contribute to making the slope on which the earnings of all authors, including traditional ones, are sliding even more slippery.
Back to basics
The formula for success is not as complicated as sending a mission to Mars. To build a bestseller you have to follow simple but strict rules. For every well-executed rule the author earns valuable points. We report what are for Marl Coker the proven rules of success in the world of the book industry.
1) The author must write a super-impressive and amazing book that leaves the reader breathless as it manages to satisfy him on an emotional level. This rule applies to both fiction and other genres.
2) A book must be professionally edited and redacted, there must be no carelessness that appears as such.
3) The book must have a magnificent cover image that makes it discover by readers and makes it desirable in their eyes.
4) The price must be correct.
5) It must be published in the reservation. Reservations are one of the most effective promotional tools for book novelties. Booking allows you to market the title in advance, giving it visibility and giving it an advantage for the day of the launch.
6) We need to avoid exclusivity and distribute the title as widely as possible, offering it to all resellers.
7) Write another book, freshen up and get back to work. Yes, at least a shower is needed. Take the time to do it as well.
