I am perpetually annoyed by Barnes and Noble because of their anti-international sentiments when it comes to their Nook ereading devices and also their Pubit scheme (I refuse to add the exclamation mark and I still read it as pubic). But, as the months roll on and they continue to deny readers and authors outside the US, I have to wonder whether they really are trying to compete with Amazon and Apple.
Let’s be honest, there’s no way that you can compete with those two major e-retailers when you flatly refuse to be an international company.
I have emailed Barnes and Noble several times since they first launched the Pubit scheme. At first, the responses were positive, telling authors that Pubit would open its doors to international authors in the New Year of 2011. A few months into 2011 and that all changed. They stopped responding to emails from us international authors, ignoring us as though we were plague-ridden peasants. (Dear B&N, I have sold over 110,000 ebooks on Amazon this year alone, and over 20,000 on Apple… and a paltry figure on your own site. You had the power to change that by allowing international authors to sell on your site directly, not via Smashwords. We all know you penalise anyone publishing outside of Pubit and promote Pubit books more to your readers, the sales figures make it clear)
Of course, since then I have seen plenty of authors complaining that Barnes and Noble haven’t paid them their royalties for X months and not everything is rosy in the world of Pubit. Seeing that on the forums made it understandable when they changed their Pubit site to say that it’s only available to US authors, as opposed to lying and saying it’s available to anyone as long as they have a US Bank Account. There’s a lot of speculation about the future of Barnes and Noble on the internet and some of it is truly interesting.
Specifically the rumours that Apple might purchase Barnes and Noble to gain itself more power in the ebook market. Personally, I wouldn’t complain if that happened. Barnes and Noble isn’t worth a huge amount of money so Apple could easily purchase it with their pocket change and gain themselves a larger ebook platform, and they’re probably more likely to be inclusive and either open the Nook ereading device and Pubit to international readers and authors, or absorb it into the Apple brand. Whether Apple would do anything as predictable as purchasing a competitor in order to get a stronger foothold on the ebook market is a whole other thing. Still, as I said, I wouldn’t complain but mostly because Barnes and Noble’s anti-international approach to ebooks annoys me.
The more exciting news I’ve discovered recently is the increase in ebook sales and ecommerce over the past year. Publishers Weekly talked about this on their blog at the end of October, detailing the increase by comparing quarter two 2010 to quarter 2 2011. Year on year shift in channel market share showed that ecommerce increased from 27.6% of the market last year to 37% this year, and trade stores and chains fell by 3%. Book clubs are almost dead now at less than 3%, but non-traditional and independent book stores gained increases.
In terms of the formats, print paperback dropped 7% to just 51% of the market, hardcover fell to 28.6% but the rising star is still ebooks. Lovely ebooks have risen by 10.5% to claim 13.7% of the market now. That’s an astronomical rise and one that is likely set to continue in the New Year as people open millions of new Amazon Kindle devices, Smartphones, Apple iPads, Sony and Kobo ereaders, and Nooks at Christmas.
Read all about the Bowker Pubtrack Consumer Report at Publishers Weekly
Last year sales tripled over the Christmas period and well into February, and have remained far higher than last year, at least for me. Each month was at least double what I did in December 2010, with around half of 2011 running closer to triple. Considering I decided to quit my job and write full time based on selling a few thousand dollars of books a month (I decided in July that I would file my notice in November based on the fact that I had sold over 2000 books in July on Amazon which was enough for me to scrape by on. Little did I know that come the New Year I would be selling five times that!)
I’m a cautious person. I run the figures thirty times over before committing to anything, and I don’t believe that everything will be rosy 100% of the time. I see the potential for downswings as well as upswings, so I never count my chickens. The ebook market is booming right now, but to be honest, it can easily go horribly wrong. I’m going to make the most of it while I can, laughing like a giddy school kid because I get to do what I love most in the world — write — and people are reading it. I couldn’t be happier, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have targets to challenge me. But more about that in a New Year post!
End of weird mashed up rant / celebration…
