Mar 19 2013
Tuesday News: Amazon gets sued again; PW puts up actual ebook sales numbers; Richard Nash waxes poetic about publishing; The Altantic takes on feminism and romance
The Bestselling E-books of 2012 – Publishers’ Weekly put out a list of sales numbers shared by the publishing houses for books selling more than 25,000 units. It is interesting to see the titles that were originally self published, taken over by publishing houses, and still went on to sell in substantial numbers.
Tina Reber’s Love Unrehearsed, for instance, sold 60,808 ebooks after being taken on by Simon & Schuster. Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard sold in excess of 100,000 copies after being acquired by Berkley. Beth Kery’s serial sold nearly 400,000 units. That seems to indicate that the serial isn’t going to die off very soon.
More importantly it looks like print sales are being equaled by digital sales for some books and surpassed by others which kind of puts a pall over the idea that ebook adoption will plateau at 30%. Publishers Weekly
Neal Pollack on rebounding from massive hype and six-figure deals to online publishing – In a far reaching interview over at the AV Club, Neal Pollack explains that he has sold very few books. He received a low six-figure advance for Never Mind The Pollacks but it has only sold 4,000 copies. Overall, he’s never sold more than 10,000 copies of one particular title despite his bestseller status.
On the other end of the spectrum, Karen Marie Moning announced on her facebook page she bought a Lamborghini. Literary fiction may have more status but the commercial fiction writers are driving six figure sports cars. Books | Money Matters | The A.V. Club
In Latest Twist, Penguin Demands Jury Trial in State Price-Fixing Case – I didn’t notice this before, but Penguin has refused to settle the State Court claims. The State price fixing claims involve a refund to the consumers and my guess is that Penguin is balking at this but willing to take the risk to go to trial? Even John Sargent wasn’t willing to do that. Publishers Weekly
VQR » On the business of literature – Richard Nash is a poet, singer, publisher, writer. He’s also a businessman. His long form thoughts on the past history of publishing and his future is fascinating reading. Nash talks about books and literature as the great source of disruption throughout history and we are currently in a period of disruption; not straggling in the wake of dying literary culture. However, Nash cautions to focus solely on the capitalism aspect of books ignores the true nature of literature.
Book culture is not print fetishism; it is the swirl and gurgle of idea and style in the expression of stories and concepts—the conversation, polemic, narrative force that goes on within and between texts, within and between people as they write, revise, discover, and respond to those texts. That swirl and gurgle does happen to have a home for print fetishism, as it has a home for digital fetishism. This is what literature has always been. Being yoked to the Industrial Revolution’s machines for analog reproduction, accompanied by an arbitrary process for selecting what should be reproduced, will prove to be an anomaly in the history of literature, useful as that phase was for the democratization of access to reading. VQR
Beyond Bodice-Rippers: How Romance Novels Came to Embrace Feminism – Jessica Luther, a PH.D. candidate and new romance reader, tackles the difficult issue of romance and feminism. I think much of our troublesome relationship with romance has much to do with the shaming of the genre that takes place outside, but also within the readership wherein we dismiss the value of it, often referring to it as “escapist” fiction (as Sunita argued earlier this year). Robin gives a fantastic quote regarding the issue of consent in romances.
But our love of the romance novel is weighed against the same measurements used to value our feminist credentials based on our personal fantasies. Enjoy dominance in fiction and we can’t be feminists. Enjoy books that elevate the relationship and we can’t be feminists.
I think Luther takes a good first step in exploring the concept of feminism and its struggle to accept romances. The more I’ve blogged, the more that I come to the conclusion that we need to openly embrace the romance novel without reservation before we can expect anyone else to.Jessica Luther – The Atlantic
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Mar 19, 2013 @ 08:43:05
Re. the 30% plateau: it includes all trade books. I don’t think there’s any doubt that digital will surpass (or has surpassed) print in fiction, particularly genre fiction, but digital sales of non-fiction are much lower. Was the Steve Jobs biography on that list? It was one of last years huge bestsellers, in hardcover.
One other point. I believe PW gets its print numbers from Bookscan. Though Bookscan is more accurate now that (since 1/1/13) it includes Walmart sales, formerly it only represented 25%-75% of actual sales, depending on genre, distribution etc. My own Bookscan numbers have historically run well under 50% of actual print sales.
Mar 19, 2013 @ 08:58:04
Maybe I missed it. Which article is about Amazon being sued?
Mar 19, 2013 @ 09:00:51
@MrsJoseph: Oops, I think I took that one out and saved it for tomorrow.