Monday News: July brick & mortar store sales down; Overdrive end...
Publishing News
book-sales, digital lending
July Bookstore Sales Dropped 6.3% – July book sales in retail brick and mortar stores were disappointing in July. PW pins this on the fact that there is no set of books that sold as much as the Fifty Shades trilogy last year. I’ve been hearing rumbles that overall book sales for indie authors were depressed in the past couple of months as well.
I wondered if this is because of the drop of Agency pricing and the subsequent discounting of traditional published books. The digital equivalent of mass market books have dropped in price to around $5.99 for many books. The last couple weeks of NYTimes lists have shown a reduced number of self published authors. I’m not sure if there is a lowered number of sales overall or whether there is an uptick in previously marked Agency books that have been on people’s wishlists?
We are now entering the serious book season when the big publishers release their “big books” in anticipation of the gift giving season. One fairly reliable hit maker appears to be Amy Einhorn. Einhorn pulled The Help out of a slush pile and her most recent publication, The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty is making waves this month. Publishers Weekly
OverDrive end user survey results – Spring 2013 – I read that Netflix uses torrents to determine what movies it should acquire for its subscription audience. Perhaps publishers should look to Overdrive statistics to learn more about their reading audience. Users of the digital library system are overwhelmingly female between the ages of 40 and 64 and whose household income is over $50,000. Over half of the users of digital library systems start browsing for books from the Overdrive site and over half visit weekly. Other interesting statistics are included in OverDrive’s infographic. Overdrive
The Illegal Vodka Pipeline You Never Knew Existed – In Rome, ancient viaqueducts still transport drinkable water throughout the city. Mother Jones brings you other pipelines through which everything from orange juice to vodka has traveled. I know what you are thinking and that is we should be mixing the pipelines of orange juice and vodka to get fill a water fountain that would deliver screwdrivers to thirsty travelers. Mother Jones
Lynda Barry: The 20 stages of reading – Lynda Barry write and illustrates the 20 stages of reading. You fall in love with reading and maybe even genre books (like mysteries) but then as an adult you had to pretend to enjoy serious bizness literature (books published in October through November). Then you suddenly fall nose first into a genre book again and remembered your youth nostalgically. Genre books = mystery to lit fic readers, by the way. Washington Post via several readers like Wahoo Suze
Sep 16, 2013 @ 07:52:36
I want to live near the screwdriver fountain. Only problem is some group like the Hard Rock Cafe would buy the space and put an overpriced hipster bar around it.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 08:07:27
That infographic was entirely unreadable on my Macbook. I got dark print on black.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 08:08:50
@Sao – maybe check it at at the overdrive blog? Perhaps my wordpress did something wonky?
Sep 16, 2013 @ 12:05:42
I wish Overdrive had surveyed how many people find their search function completely ludicrous.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 15:29:24
Another reason brick and mortar store sales are down is because the inventory of books on the shelf is less. Walmart and Target have fewer books on their shelves than they did even 6 months ago. I am totally price driven when purchasing books I intend to buy (I rarely impulse buy except .99 ebooks). Target’s store discount is now 15% rather than 25%. Walmart cut their shelf space dramatically and now they have most of their romances at 40% off on their website. They do have a undisclosed .75 charge for their “free ship to home”. I purchase whatever form, mass market or digital, depending on the lowest pricing. Lately that’s been digital and buying on the internet not off the shelf. I’ve been having trouble finding the books I want on the shelf except at full price at B&N.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 16:04:28
Willafull ludicrous is too kind. Hate it.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 16:57:24
@farmwifetwo: It’s gotten to the point of being somewhat entertaining. When I try to search by ISBN, it inevitably takes me to a book on dealing with depression.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 17:56:19
@willaful:Perhaps because so many users are driven to despair by their search engine?
I’ve never tried to search by ISBN number, but I’m often tickled (and infuriated) by their completely ridiculous keyword results. In my ideal cleo-land, I’d be able to search my library’s regular catalog and get results for both print and ebooks (you know, like I can get book and dvd results at the same time). Alas, no one has surveyed me about that.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 18:00:55
@cleo: My library actually does that. They’re very forward things in regards to technology.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 19:19:00
Yep. I was in Coles today for the first time in months, and they’ve renovated. The Romance section used to be about 6 sets of shelves, and it’s now down to 2. A third of which are filled up by only 3 authors.
Sep 16, 2013 @ 21:33:11
@Wahoo Suze:
If you can’t see it, you can’t buy it!!!
Sep 17, 2013 @ 12:55:21
@cleo: I did a little bit of checking, and, from what I can tell, there’s absolutely no reason why any library that buys through Overdrive couldn’t provide access to their ebooks through their catalog. It looks like it’s possible for libraries to get free records with their ebooks. If your library has comment cards/forms, you might want to let them know that this is something you’re interested in.
Sep 17, 2013 @ 13:12:38
@LG: Thanks LG. I’m glad that I mentioned it here – it never occurred to me to look into that. I will let my library know my preferences.
Sep 17, 2013 @ 13:17:12
@cleo: Library cataloging departments rarely get feedback from actual library users (I’m a cataloger, so I’m speaking from experience), so they’ll probably love to hear what you have to say.
Sep 17, 2013 @ 13:32:36
@LG: My mother’s a retired children’s librarian – when I first got my ereader and started grousing about how difficult it is to find ebooks through my library system, she also said I should let them know and that they’d be glad to get feedback. Now that someone besides my mother has given me the same advice, I think I’ll actually do it.
Sep 17, 2013 @ 13:36:36
@cleo: I sent an email asking for more mp3 audiobooks at our library and got a positive reply. (Interestingly, none of the overdrive libraries I use even seem to carry WMA anymore. I don’t know if there was a financial/rights issue or what, but I’m overjoyed. Use the format *everyone* can use!)
Sep 17, 2013 @ 15:05:53
@cleo: Heh, after all of this, I decided to double-check before complaining, and what do you know – their on-line catalog does search for downloadable media, including ebooks, along with everything else. I swear I couldn’t do that last time I tried, but it was a couple years ago and who knows, maybe I just missed it then. So, yay, I’m freed from the tyranny of the Overdrive search and I didn’t even have to fill out a complaint card or anything.