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Charting the future
26.01.12 | Scott Pack
The editor asked me if I would like to write a column about my hopes for the book world during 2012. As someone who is notorious for his positive and chirpy outlook on life, I found it hard to resist. So here, if I may, are some hopes, dreams and wishes for the year ahead.
First up, I wish we could finally have a bloody e-book chart. I know I have said it before but it didn't happen, so I am saying it again. Apparently I published the bestselling e-book of 2011; it was called Confessions of a GP by Dr Benjamin Daniels. I say "apparently" as I don't have a bloody clue. No one does. It is all a big guess. An educated one, but a guess nonetheless. Now, seeing as FutureBook, The Bookseller and the Independent have all put it in writing I am claiming it as fact, something you'll notice if you check out the e-book's listing at any online retailer, but we can't possibly know for sure. So I'd really like an e-book chart please. I think we all would.
But here's the thing: that's my only wish. Sure, I hope all the bookshops stay in business and all the other obvious stuff, but if I could only have one wish it would be that one. This leaves me 250 words short of a column. So I have done what most pretend journalists do when struggling to come up with content for an article. I have turned to Twitter.
Here are some of the answers I received to the question: "What are your hopes for the book world in 2012?"
Free e-book downloads with hardback purchases. A month without a James Patterson book released. Less young adult dystopia, more contemporary. Borders to re-form. Rebus back. That people will stop closing our libraries. For people to stop being advertised as "the new XXX" (usually Stieg Larsson). Amazon supporting ePub.
Publishers recognising DRM as a dodo. Bundled books: one to display and one to carry round. Either discounted paperback available with purchase of e-book or free e-book with purchase of hardcover (can you detect a theme developing here?).
And most of these were from readers, not people within our industry. Interesting.
Oh, and there was this splendid one from Mark Billingham: "I hope I don't get any more emails from readers furious at having to pay more than 49p for an e-book. Saying things like: ‘Why should I pay that much for something as ephemeral as the words?'"
That was a pretty random sample, and hardly a scientific one, but it does suggest that readers are thinking digital, that they want publishers to be creative with both e-books and print, that they value bookshops and libraries and the written word on paper. And if that doesn't offer us a platform for a successful 2012, I don't know what does.
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My own wish: to stop hearing, almost on a daily basis, the usual talking heads within the industry coming out with their glib proclamations.
"Digital will represent 87.5015% of book sales within 4.65 years time" said Big Book Co's Head of Digital, who is probably called Dan and who probably used to work in Games Workshop.
"It is essential that publishers futureproof themselves and consistently come up with new ways to innovate in their publishing...will that do?" said a woman with shoulderpads and lots of make up, CEO of Even Bigger Book Co, whose latest smash hit is the TV tie-in "The I Can Make You Knit Your Own Girl with The Titanic Zombie Cupcakes Bake Off Diaries".
The Biggest Book Co Chief Executive today proudly reported that their 2011 sales had ben "solid" and that "like-for-like sales had grown 4% (if you exclude all 2010 UK trade sales numbers, or something that makes it look better, hurry up, that bookseller hack is waiting on the phone)" which was an "outstanding performance" said a man who looks like his business portrait has been stolen from the wall of a 1990s barber shop.
Please. Stop.
So your contribution is what ?
I was just replying to Scott's post with a bit of light-hearted humour Julian, that's all. Come on, it's Friday and the end of a what has been a long, tortuous week. Surely even you could allow a little light relief without getting your knickers in a twist again?
"it does suggest that readers are thinking digital" - well sort of. It suggests that readers on twitter, an entirely digital medium, are thinking digital.
It might also suggest that readers not on Twitter (perhaps the majority - who knows) aren't thinking digital.
In fact it could be argued that readers on Twitter are calling for both digital and paper formats.
I'm with Corey on the meanginlessness of this stuff - only I can't put it as well.
The whole ebook listing looks quite complicated to me. If you read the original article where the claim about Confessions of a GP came from, it says 'has been downloaded more than 100,000 times' (http://futurebook.net/content/top-50-e-book-bestsellers-year). The Bookseller article interprets this as 'a runaway success as a download, with more than 100,000 editions sold'. With sold being the crucial difference.(http://www.thebookseller.com/news/confessions-e-book-year.html). Presumably if 100,000 copies had been sold, the evidence would be the bulging Friday Project coffers. The question is, would an ebook chart list all downloads or split it into sold and free ones?
Logically, if physical book sales included library loan stats yes CMS , but as this is not the case "sales" stats should be just that , but I guess this will be impossible to differentiate for a chart compiler?.
CMS, to clarify, we haven't given a single copy of Confessions of a GP away for free. I think we are approaching 200,000 copies now and every one of them is a sale. Not a high-price sale, I grant you, but a sale.
i think the only fair chart would be one based on Quantity sold x Average sale price. Isn't that a no-brainer?
Otherwise known as 'sales revenue' ;)
Well around 2/3rds of our ebook revenue comes from the library markets. A lot of this revenue is based on click-per-view or seat licenses. Shouldn't this count as 'sales' - how do you report it? Although these sales are considerable I doubt they'd trouble the charts but I imagine some people would have books that did.
So actually the best sales chart should be one that just considers revenues earned - which I think should also be the case for the book charts. It is surely a better measure of success than just numbers - certainly it is for the author's bank balance.
"If I had £1 for every book I sold", etc :-)
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