2014 Charleston Conference Thursday, Nov 6, 12:45 PM

1. Amazon as a Library Supplier
Joseph J. Esposito
Charleston Conference 2014

2. Topics
• Book publishers and channel sales
• The “black hole” for data
• University press sales: declining in library
market
• Rising sales at Amazon
• Amazon as “covert” library wholesaler
• Research grant to study this

3. The Data Conundrum for a Book
Publisher
• Publishers know their authors
• Almost all books are sold through
intermediaries (YBP, Ingram, etc.)
• Customers are not consumers
• Publishers know almost nothing about the
people who read their books
• Sales to Amazon are growing, but where do
they ultimately go?

4. Publishers and Libraries
• Academic book sales continue to decline
• A secular trend: it precedes DDA and
aggregations (e.g., UPCC)
• Hard to analyze, as data is hard to come by
• Meanwhile, Amazon’s sales continue to grow

5. Hypothesis
• Some portion of the declining library sales are
migrating to Amazon
• In other words, some of the alleged drop in
library sales by U. presses is in fact migration
from traditional wholesalers to Amazon

6. Questions about Amazon
• Amazon will provide NO information
• Only way to get this information is to ask
libraries
• Research project: study library purchasing
practices to isolate purchases from Amazon—
and U. press books in particular

7. The Project Has Been Funded!
• Generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation
• Grantee: Ithaka S+R
• Project has just begun
• Preparing survey now
• Seek broad participation from academic
libraries
• Results will be published openly

8. Contact Information
• Joseph J. Esposito
• Processed Media
• espositoj@gmail.com
• @josephjesposito
• http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
• +Joseph Esposito