Dan Poynter - Mark Coker Presentation: Print Books to Ebooks

66 lbs & 26” of Shelf Space 30 kg & 66 cm S: Someone printed out the whole thing?

Congratulations on

Attending the Publishing University

Deciding to wring more value out of your work.

pBooks to eBooks

 

Poll

How many have a

Kindle?

Sony Reader?

iPhone?

PocketPC?

Other reader?

How many publish eBooks?

Still write letters and buy stamps?

Chapter Fourteen Provide a Choice of Format 9 editions of the same Work

My History

Selling downloadable documents since 1996

Speaking on eBook since early 1990s

Reader of eBooks

eBook author, publisher & reader

pBook Must Come First

For credibility

For promotion

Reviews

To opinion molders

S: Cape Town

Who Reads eBooks?

People on the move

Portable

Less weight & volume

Think outside the (paper) book

My travels

Why eBooks?

Less expensive

No typesetting

No printing

No inventory

No wrapping

No physical shipping

Quicker to market

Speed of light

S: Spm-2 editions

Think Globally

The World is your potential market

We are selling information—not hard goods

Distribute via the Internet

No cost to ship

No import duty

No sales taxes

Instant delivery

50,000 Reading Devices

Amazon Kindle books to iPhone.

500,000 Kindles. 38 million iPhones and iPOD Touches.

More hardware is coming. Kindle DX, Apple reader, Plastic Logic eReader, FirstPaper,

Some reading devices are large enough to replace newspapers and magazines.

Content

Amazon Kindle books to iPhone.

275,000 current eBook titles

B&N and Fictionwise

Lots of current titles. Great site.

Sony and Google

Out-of-print books

Available to iPhone

Must give people what they want to read

Who is Taking a Piece of the Action? Buyer Discount Nets Publisher Retains Nets Cutting out the gatekeepers in the middle Based on Book’s List Price: $19.95 Publisher 45% ($8.98) Publisher 34% ($6.78) Publisher 60% ($11.97) Reader 0% ($19.95) Publisher 100% ($19.95) Bookstore 40% ($7.98) Wholesaler* 55% ($10.97) Distributor* 66% ($13.17)

How are eBooks Selling?

Digital Rights Management What Needs Protection?

Entertainment Information

Music Fiction Nonfiction

Appeals to many Appeals to some Appeals to few

Used repeatedly Used Once Kept as reference

Often shared Occasionally shared Rarely shared

Not revised Not revised Revisable

Multitask Single task Single task

Protection schemes penalize paying customers. Weigh the value.

Amazon.com provides a locking device

Pricing Your Book

Pricing pBooks

Top-down: Additional method.

What will the traffic bear?

Bottom-up: Traditional method.

8x printing and trucking costs

(After your initial 500 books)

Pricing eBooks

Top-down only ($4-$8)

No investment in printing, etc.

eBook Readers Amazon Kindle Sony Reader

Read Books on Your iPhone

See the video demo at http://www.fictionwise.com/help/iphonefaq.htm

eBook Reader: Pocket PC

Stores 10,000+ books

Text is one Newspaper-Column Wide

Type size is adjustable

Address book

Calendar

Synchronizes with PC

Backlighted

Wireless

WiFi & Skype

Stores 3 audiobooks

Google Maps and GPS Navigator

1. Write Your Book

MS-Word

2. Convert to Various eBook Formats

Smashwords.com

(Actually a Publishing Platform & Online Store)

PubDimensions.com

DetailsPlease.com/eBook

eChapterOne.com

codeMantra.com

eBookApp.com

IngramDigital.com

ScrollMotion.com

Shortcovers.com

N: More converters

More Converters

Amazon.com

ElectronicAndDatabasePub.com

ReadHowYouWant.com

Texterity.com

DIY Conversion Programs

DropBook

Blackman’s eBook Converter

FeedBooks.com

eReader.com

Stanza.lexcycle.com

Adobe InDesign

Calibre

BookGlutton.com

3. Submit

Smashwords.com

LightningSource.com

Amazon.com

B&N.com

Fictionwise.com

BookLocker.com (PDF only)

4. Sell

Downloading from your own site is not recommended

They handle the order processing

Dealers have more customers/traffic

Customer Service expenses

Unique ISBN for Each “Edition” Get a Block of 100 ISBNs http://www.ISBN.org

Introducing Mark Coker

Books are precious

Receptacles for capturing, sharing and immortalizing

knowledge

culture

Promote cross-cultural understanding and knowledge sharing

We must save books

Are books endangered?

Print books are too expensive

Books face increased competition from alternative media

Overall book industry sales in decline

Many publishers struggling to survive

Many talented book trade professionals out of work

Risk losing bookmaking brain trust?

Will Ebooks Replace Print Books?

eBooks will save publishing Image credit: movie poster for “Smiley Face,” directed by Gregg Araki http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi565313817/

Ebooks are similar to print books and stone tablets

Each offers lovingly prepared packaged units of words

Each delivers words on a substrate medium

Each represents a different way to enjoy a book

eBooks failed in the late 1990s, left for dead

Paper reading vastly superior to screen reading

Overpriced

DRM=confusion, frustration

Limited selection

… yet the demise of ebooks was greatly exaggerated

Wholesale Ebook Revenues Surpass $100 million Data: AAP http://www.publishers.org/documents/S12008Final.pdf 58% compound annual growth for 6 years vs. 1.6% all books

Annual growth rates, p- & e- Data: AAP http://www.publishers.org/documents/S12008Final.pdf

Monthly growth, y-o-y eBook vs. overall market Data: AAP http://www.publishers.org/

Do eBooks Really Matter? $113,220,000 (ebooks)  $24,225,025,000 (all books) = 0.467% AAP sales data 2008

Do eBooks Really Matter? = 0.6% Source: 2008 Bowker PubTrack Consumer survey of book-buying behavior

Yes eBooks Matter! Q1 2009 = 2.4% Up from 0.6% for all of 2008 Source: Bowker's PubTrack Consumer survey of book-buying behavior

Stats understate results of early ebook participants

Build it and they will come

For books available in both e- & p-, in Feb ‘09 Amazon reported that 10% of sales were ebooks

Amazon May 2009: eBooks 35% of pBooks Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-kindle-sales-now-a-shocking-35-of-book-sales-when-kindle-version-available-2009-5

Why ebooks are hot

Screen reading (almost) rivals paper

Amazon + Oprah

iPhone (Stanza 1.8 million users)

Free books are gateway drug

Greater content selection

Prices coming down

Digital shelves appearing everywhere

Impulse buying

Early adopters new evangelists

DRM on its way out?

Why eBooks will become more popular than paper

Ebooks will offer superior reading experience

Screens will become better than paper

Changeable font size

Portable & compact

Library in the cloud

eBooks as hubs and spokes within richer, more immersive experiences

Huge selection

Ebooks are cheap

eBook opportunity for publishers

Publishers become more important

curators of content

Digital opens worldwide market

Lower cost = higher per-unit margin

lower cost = larger available market

No inventory

No product returns

No shipping

Digital enables serendipitous discovery

Digital shelves everywhere

instant sampling

impulse purchases

Supply chain disintermediation

How eBooks will impact book supply chain for publishers printer P-publisher Shipper/w/d customer bookseller E-publisher customer ebookseller E-publisher customer ebookseller E-distributor E-publisher customer E-publisher affiliate ebookseller E-distributor customer

Winners and losers in new ebook supply chain

Winners

Publishers and authors!

Ebook distributors/e-retailers/digital shelf owners/tool makers

Readers!

Ebook reading device makers

Losers

Tree growers, tree pulpers, ink/glue/printing press makers, printers, warehousers, truckers, oil producers, box makers, remainderers,

slow-to-adapt print publishers, print bookstores

Amazon eats lunch of big box bookstores 10 year percentage change in stock price, Amazon, B&N, Borders

How the market values Borders, B&N, Amazon

Market caps

Borders: $130 million

Barnes & Nobel: $1.2 billion

Amazon: $32 billion

AMZN 246X more valuable than Borders, 26X more valuable than B&N

P/S ratios

Borders: .04

Barnes & Nobel: .24

Amazon: 1.62

Every AMZN sales dollar 40x more valuable than Borders, 7X more valuable than B&N

Amazon positioned to control ebook market

Power over publishers

Devicemaker - Kindle

Mobile ebooks - Acquired Lexcycle (Stanza)

Amazon as publisher - Amazon Encore/Digital Text Platform/Booksurge/CreateSpace

Amazon as community provider - Amazon.com, Shelfari acquisition

Amazon audio books - Audible acquisition

Amazon as after-market aggregator - acquired Abebooks

Big squeeze - eliminated Kindle books from affiliate program

Proprietary lock in - Requires their DRM

Survival strategy for independent publishers

Work with Amazon

Develop alternative channels

Build closer relationship with customers

direct customers to publisher-friendly e-retailers

offer incentives for customers to form relationship with you

coupons for registration data

exclusive sneak peeks, author events

Learn to think like a software company

Publishers in the software business now

eBooks = software

selling digital bits

low cost duplication

no shipping costs

no after market

high profit margins

different ways to market, price and sell content

dealing with piracy

Multi-format is essential (see next slide)

Why Multi-Format Matters

How to do eBooks right

New thinking required

ebooks consumed differently than print books

liberate text from complex formatting and layout

don’t try to make e- look like p-

Straight form narrative works best

picture books, complex layout, more challenging

Use DRM-free as competitive advantage

lead the change, don’t be victimized by it

Explore new options for pricing, marketing and selling

Ebook pricing

Rethink fixation on list price and “revenues”

Profit matters more

Simple economics

High price = limited market

Lower price = larger market

Ebooks enable lower prices, higher per-unit profits, larger available markets

The power (and danger) of FREE

FREE as a strategy for sampling, seeding and audience building

Eliminates friction

Gets buyers closer to your product and brand

Conversion opportunities

Builds goodwill

But don’t go overboard!

Ebook marketing models

Go viral with social media marketing

community reviews (Librarything, Goodreads)

social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)

blogs

give customers tools to do your marketing for you

widgets (shareable, interactive ads)

coupons

sample sharing

Ebook sampling

Sampling, seeding, audience building

percentage sampling

via online readers

via file downloads

make samples shareable

free books

Ebooks selling models

Multiple selling models possible

a la carte

buffet

hors d'oeuvres

subscription

Radiohead - pay what you want

shareware - pay on the honor system

free?

Final words

Develop and implement an ebook strategy now

late movers face permanent disadvantage

experiment

launch quick, iterate frequently

rethink pricing

Physical shelves disappearing

leverage community to build digital shelves everywhere

Diversify distribution

Get closer to your customer

Questions

“ Electronic books are not going anywhere—they are already here."

4 Is there anything we can clarify for you? Where to find Mark Coker: Web: www.smashwords.com Blog: blog.smashwords.com Twitter: @markcoker Email: [email_address] Where to find Dan Poynter: Web: www.parapub.com Sign up for the FREE Publishing Poynters ezine Twitter: @danpoynter Email: [email_address]

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