Which social media channel sells the most books?
“Which one social media channel will net me the most book sales?” an author asked me recently during my new weekly #BookMarketingChat.
Tag: sales
Why Amazon ebook market is not enough – go global!
PublishDrive is an ebook publishing service which supports the operational processes of small indie publishers and authors. Kinga Jentetics is CEO and co-founder of PublishDrive, and here she shares their information on global ebook sales.
Amazon ebook market is not the only store where you can reach your readers
When it is about ebooks, many folks think about Amazon ebooks only. Obviously, Amazon is a dominant player in online book and ebook retailing… However, when it is global publishing, doors are opened for many new stores, business models and channels. As an indie publisher you have to explore other opportunities as well, how to make your ebook publishing efforts more profitable on the long term. To be honest, it is always much wiser to have more partners than being dependent on one big partner. Because the future is always changing.
If you are an indie publisher, you can find even surprisingly lucrative business models in case of Scribd for instance. But of course, the end result always depend on the book category too. You can read more about the different business models here.
It may surprise you how many potential readers and earnings you may lose if you publish only on Amazon ebook market. Why would you do that, especially if you already have your own ebook converted? Look at our numbers and you will understand why it is crucial to go to other ebook stores as well.
PublishDrive’s analysis on Amazon ebook sales
We analyzed the sales numbers of our publishers signed up and found that in case of English titles only 45% of the sales volume came from the Amazon ebook market. It is unquestionably a huge share, but still, if you are exclusive with Amazon Kindle through KDP, you may lose 55% of your potential readers and sales. You may earn more money in those stores and markets what you have never thought about to be more suitable for your target group.
But why can our sales numbers show only 45%? Because:
- we have many new channels integrated for English language books (even in emerging markets)
- we offer merchandising option for many of the stores
- our operations show if there is any discrepancy of your books being available in stores
- you can see your realtime sales so you may alter your marketing efforts as well
To sum up
The numbers do not lie, so we believe in global publishing to all possible channels in a more transparent way. Amazon ebook market is very much important for all authors and indie publishers but do not forget that you may increase your sales by more than 100%. Just open your mind to new retailers.
This post originally appeared on the PublishDrive blog.
Bloomsbury sales up 11%
Bloomsbury today announces unaudited results for the year ended 29 February 2016.
Financial highlights
- Revenue grew by 11% to £123.7 million (2015: £111.1 million)
- Profit before taxation and highlighted items increased by 8% to £13.0 million (2015: £12.1 million)
- Both revenue and profit benefited from the successful integration of Osprey Publishing acquired in December 2014
- Final dividend per share of 5.34 pence (2015: 5.08 pence) making a total dividend of 6.4 pence for the year (2015: 6.1 pence)
- Diluted earnings per share, excluding highlighted items, were 15.24 pence (2015: 14.73 pence)
Strategic developments
Bloomsbury 2020 launched today, moving Bloomsbury further in to the area of B2B digital publishing; a significant growth plan for Bloomsbury Digital Resources Publishing, a new range of scholarly digital resources aimed at academic libraries worldwide whose collective budgets are approximately $5 billion
Announcement today of reorganisation of Bloomsbury from four to two divisions: Consumer and Non-Consumer, to reflect the increasing emphasis on our Non-Consumer businesses.
Operating Highlights
Children’s & Educational
- Revenue for the year increased by 57% to £41.8m (2015: £26.6m)
- Sales of Harry Potter in the year grew by 133%, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Illustrated Edition by J. K. Rowling and Jim Kay being published to great acclaim
- A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas has just hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Sales of Sarah J. Maas titles, which included A Court of Thorns and Roses, grew by 184%.
Adult division
- Revenue increased by 3% year on year to £46.0 million (2015: £44.7 million)
- Osprey Publishing, which was acquired in December 2014, generated revenue of £7.2 million (2015: £1.5 million)
- Focus on special interest niches paying off, representing 14% of total Bloomsbury sales (2015: 10%)
Academic & Professional
- Revenue for the year was £32.7 million (2015: £36.0 million), slightly lower as expected due to a strong rights and services comparator last year
- Digital revenues grew by 24% year on year to £5.3 million, more than treble the industry growth rate (Source: Publishing Association: Digital Sales Monitor)
- Digital now represents 16% of total revenues in the division (2015: 12%)
- Acquisition of the definitive family law list for net consideration of £0.5m
Bloomsbury Information
- Revenue for the year was £3.2 million (2015: £3.9 million)
- Operating profit before highlighted items was up 9% to £1.2 million (2015: £1.1 million)
- From 2016, Bloomsbury is providing publishing services to the Arcadian Library, one of the finest collections of books about relations between the West and the Arab and Islamic worlds
Strong list for the year ahead
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Illustrated Edition by J. K. Rowling and Jim Kay
- Two front list Sarah J. Maas titles
- New cookery titles from Tom Kerridge and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
- New content from J. K. Rowling for the new edition of Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
Commenting on the results, Nigel Newton, Chief Executive, said:
“Bloomsbury has had a very good year with strong revenue and book sales growth, including a significant increase in digital sales. In particular, our Children’s & Educational division delivered an exceptional performance, with its third year of double digit revenue growth.
Bloomsbury continues its strategy of growing academic, professional, special interest and educational revenues. There are significant market opportunities to accelerate the growth of our digital revenues and today we have set out the Bloomsbury 2020 strategy. This focuses on growing revenues from academic and professional digital resources for academic libraries worldwide, whose budget is estimated to be $5 billion. This will lead our repositioning in the market from a primarily consumer publisher to a digital B2B publisher, whilst continuing our long track record of huge bestsellers in the adult and children’s markets which remain a very important part of Bloomsbury’s mission.
We have started the year in line with our expectations and look forward to publishing our strong list in the year ahead.”
The next 5 years of publishing: jetpacks and hoverboards [OPINION]
In the run up to Publishing: the next 5 years, BookMachine will be featuring a number of opinions about what might be next for the industry. This is a guest blog from Lottie Chase. Lottie is the Sales Manager of Legend Press, a publisher passionate about championing new and high-profile authors and ensuring the book remains a product of beauty, enjoyment and fulfilment. She was the Chair of the Society of Young Publishers and has previously worked in export sales at both Walker Books and Quercus.
Tips on working as a social media manager: Maya Ninel Robert interview
Maya Ninel Robert is the Social Producer for Mashable in the UK. Previously to this she worked for the publisher, Pan Macmillan. Here Norah Myers interviews Maya about her great job, and about working with social media.
1. Please take us through a ‘day in the life’ in your work as a social media manager.
In any one day, I’ll start by looking at what’s currently being shared and talked about on various social media platforms, looking out for trending conversations and comparing our content’s performance. A large bulk of my job is scheduling out our own content on our platforms, and seeing through a strategy that I have developed. I’m constantly on the look-out to identify gaps in the market, too, and relaying that back to my team. I work very analytically, so a lot of my day is spent testing content and reporting back useful data to my team or outlying a strategy I think would benefit our community.
Nielsen reveals further decline in print and books as gifts, rise in digital
We already know that print sales declined in 2013 (as they have year on year for a while now), dropping in value from £1.514 billion in 2012 to £1.416 billion – a slump of £98 million, 6.5% of total print sales in 2012. We also know that the decline in print books sold year on year was even more precipitous, dropping 9.8% from around 203.9 million units sold in 2012 to 183.9 million. Now Nielsen has released the results of its Book Survey analysing the damage in more detail, showing an overall decline of 4% in UK book sales across print and digital and pointing out one major contributing factor in particular – a fall in the number of books bought as gifts.
5 Questions for Núria Pérez Olid [INTERVIEW]
GlobalBook is an international project that connects the entire book publishing chain, giving publishers more data about how sales are achieved, and the intelligence to do better. In this short interview Fabrizio Luccitti, asks Núria Pérez Olid (Chairwoman) more about their work, and plans for the future.
Is Re-Publishing a Self-Published Book a Good Idea?
In the last two years, a lot of publishers have been buying into self-published ebook successes in a big way. There’s the Amanda Hocking trilogy, John Locke (the first man to really “crack” the KDP system and sell one million kindle ebooks), 50 Shades of Grey, and, quite recently, Wool by Hugh Cowey to name a few of the main deals. Some of these have earned seven-figure advances, something debut authors would only dream of. But are they worth it?
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