Disqus - Latest Comments for MarkCoker

Re: Now Kings of ebook subscription, what will impede the ebook share growth for Amazon?

MarkCoker — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 19:44:25 -0000

Mike, based on my conversations with publishing folks, most are completely unaware how KU is the tip of a sword meant to eviscerate their single copy sales. Hopefully your post here will open some eyes. Publishers that enroll in KU are only feeding the beast that will one day eat them. More here - http://www.digitalpw.com/di...

Re: 7 Key Developments in Self-Publishing in 2015

MarkCoker — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 02:55:48 -0000

Nate, #1 is very interesting imho for the very reason that it's about retail and distribution. Democratized distribution is what enabled the indie author revolution to take hold. Where might Ingram take this? And as for the expanded Smashwords distribution, same thing. Retailers and libraries connect readers to indie books. Important.

Re: Hacking through Amazon’s jungle of coverage

MarkCoker — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 10:00:02 -0000

The fallacy of balance: are you suggesting we should replace investigative journalists with pollsters? Rather than interviewing 100 current and former employees should NYT have polled 5,000 current and former employees? By giving all sides equal weighting when the truth is overwhelmingly on one side is to do a disservice to the truth. Nearly 100% of scientists believe in climate change, yet the media in its attempt to air both sides in the name of "balance" has created a public opinion that's almost evenly split. Or recall the birther movement. Such "balance" does a disservice to the truth because it's human nature to believe that when presented with two diametrically opposed but allegedly credible arguments that the truth is somewhere in the middle. The danger for the media giving each side equal weight is that arguments without credibility are then viewed as credible. Journalists have a responsibility to present the truth rather than lend credibility to crackpots and outliers.

Re: How Readers can Avoid Buying Bad eBooks by Indie Authors

MarkCoker — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 20:06:16 -0000

Michael, you need to correct the post. It's simply not true that, as you write above, "that Apple suspended their relationship with [Smashwords] and abandoned the “Breakout Books” section on the iBookstore." This is flat out false. Please do the right thing and remove this from the post without further delay.

Re: How Readers can Avoid Buying Bad eBooks by Indie Authors

MarkCoker — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:08:36 -0000

Michael, it's one thing for you to have misguided opinions. You're entitled to your misguided opinions. But it's quite another thing to spread blatant misinformation. The relationship between Apple and Smashwords is proceeding quite well, thank you. Every week Smashwords authors are hitting bestsellers lists there, and every week you'll find Smashwords titles prominently featured. Any day, it's easy to find Smashwords titles at iBooks that are earning hundreds if not thousands of reader ratings averaging 4 1/2 stars. Don't you realize that by dissing all indie authors you're also dissing the millions of readers who love reading indie books? iBooks is pro-Indie and have always been an amazing partner to Smashwords authors and publishers. The Breakout Books feature at iBooks is an ongoing feature. They cycle it in and out of their various stores around the world. You can view the current crop of titles at the permalink at http://iTunes.com/BreakoutB... Please correct your post.

Re: ‘It’s Over. We Can Coexist Now': Hugh Howey Calls A Ceasefire

MarkCoker — Sun, 19 Oct 2014 18:33:57 -0000

Right on, Patricia. Most indie authors sat out this debate, and most who paid attention were turned off by the tactics of the Amazon partisans, of which Howey was a ringleader. The Amazon partisans brought a level of bullying and animosity never before seen in the short history of the indie movement. The ugliness of indie authors attacking fellow authors was unprecedented and so unfortunate. I'd argue it harmed the indie movement because a large number of watchers - media, authors and readers among them - now see indies as angry, envious, bullying and blindly pro-Amazon, and this simply isn't the case. The Authors United group of traditionally published authors - a frequent target of the Amazon partisans - were mercilessly attacked simply because they were asking for more respectable treatment from Amazon. Amazon partisans used the tactics and language of extreme right wing political groups, such as labeling AU authors as "elites" and attacking the media when the message didn't suit them. All around ugly. Indies are better than this. Indies *need* to be better than this.

Let's all accept that all authors today are indie. All authors today make conscious choices - they choose to pursue the traditional path, they choose the indie path, or they choose a blended path. No path deserves criticism. Each path has its pros and cons. It's wonderful that all authors have more choices and more power and more opportunity than ever before.

Publishers are not evil. Amazon is not evil. Authors - traditional, indie or hybrid, are all great. Let's support one another because working together we'll achieve more than working against each other.

Re: Literary Agent Loretta A. Barrett Has Died

MarkCoker — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 21:31:01 -0000

Very sorry to hear this. My condolences to her family and friends. I very much enjoyed meeting her and wish I could have known her longer.

Re: What Is the Value of Traditional Publishers? [Smart Set]

MarkCoker — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:29:02 -0000

Jane, great collection here. On KDP Select, I was wondering the same thing WRT preorders. KDP-S could offer preorder capability to authors, and that would be well-received, but then it becomes yet another critical merchandising tool such as FREE days that Amazon restricts while other retailers make the same tools available to all without requiring exclusivity. KDP-S may eventually backfire against Amazon, because in order to
sweeten the honeypot to lure in KDP-S authors, they must also
disadvantage the authors who don't go exclusive. This is an aspect of
KDP-S few ever talk about. By giving advantage to some authors, they're
taking advantage from others. One group enjoys more discoverability and
more tools, and the other group gets less.

Re: Female Authors Depend on their Husbands to Write Romance

MarkCoker — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:24:19 -0000

Michael, I'm going to guess you don't have the slightest clue how incredibly idiotic, insulting and offensive this post is, not just to women but to the men who respect them.

Re: Overdrive Inundates Libraries with 200,000 Horrendous Indie eBooks

MarkCoker — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 23:03:44 -0000

Michael, how is it possible that an otherwise intelligent person such as yourself can get self publishing so wrong, so consistently. If you'd be so kind to read the original announcement at http://blog.smashwords.com/... you'll learn we're building curated lists based on our aggregated sales knowledge sourced from retailers such as iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Oyster, Scribd, the Smashwords store and others. These reader-pleasing lists will represent many of the world's bestselling indie authors across multiple genres and categories. When you disparage indie authors like this, you're insulting the millions of readers who have purchased and enjoyed Smashwords books. Readers are in control, and they're choosing these books.

Re: Subscription services for ebooks progress to becoming a real experiment

MarkCoker — Wed, 28 May 2014 22:44:22 -0000

Mike, the indie angle. Smashwords titles will contribute to the viability of their business models. A couple primary reasons: 1. We've helped Oyster and Scribd achieve critical mass. We supply about 250,000 of each service's title count, so over half of each of their catalogs. 2. Nearly 40,000 of our titles are priced at FREE, which means our titles provide hours of reader enjoyment at no cost to the service. Our remaining titles are low-cost, usually $3.99 or less, which means more hours of reading pleasure at less cost to the service.

Re: Jim Milliot to Lead Publishers Weekly as Michael Coffey Retires

MarkCoker — Tue, 13 May 2014 17:13:15 -0000

Congrats to Jim! Well-deserved.

Re: And If the Readership Pulls in Different Directions?

MarkCoker — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:36:57 -0000

Hi Porter. I always enjoy your mashups. I don't think bifurcated is the right word to describe what's happening, assuming anything is happening. Bifurcate implies two different branches where the tips of the branches don't meet. I think a better label to describe readership would be dumb bell, as in the weight lifting sort, and along the dumb bell you've got the prices at which readers are purchasing books. On one bulbous end you've got the FREE to $4.99 price points, then in the skinny middle you've got maybe $5.00-$7.99, and then you've got $8.00+. And I'm not even convinced it's a dumb bell shape. It could be the shape of a cylinder, or (more likely) it's a lumpy cylinder. Indies are mostly pricing on one side and trad publishers are mostly on the other side. The two sides have cross over because both dabble in other price points. While there are certainly some readers who consciously purchase indie-only or traditional-only, I think that's a minority driver for most readers. Instead, they're asking themselves, "Is this book desirable to me or not," and attached to the question is a complex calculus that determines their decision making. The calculus can't be boiled down to a single factor. Here are just a few of the factors, and attached to each factor there will be a spectrum of weighting that is as unique to every reader as their DNA:

Author - Do I know that author? Do I like that author? Do I like them a little or a lot? Am I looking right now for an author I know and like, or am I looking for someone new, or do I not care either way?

Cover image - Is it making a promise to me, and does that promise match what I'm looking for right now, or what I might like later? Does it make me desire this book?

Title - Does it make me desire it?
Book description - Does it attract or repel me?
Reviews - what are my peers saying? Do I care? There's nuance here. This is not a binary good/bad judgement. Even negative reviews can sell a book if what one person hated is what another person desires.
Sales rank in bestseller list - Do I care or not? Some do, some don't.
Is it new or not - Some care, some don't

Price - Given my other feelings about this book, does the price make the book more desirable or less desirable?

Etc etc - There are probably dozens if not hundres of other nuanced factors that impact how the reader feels about the book

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 21:07:07 -0000

Nothing would make me happier than for my 15% number to be proven way too high. If retailers disclosed tomorrow that the indie percentage is only 5%, it would mean Smashwords has that much more opportunity ahead of it! :)

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 20:55:51 -0000

I think your statement is mostly correct. There's growth opportunity in emerging markets, but I doubt the growth will fully compensate for the flood of new high-quality books coming to market. The pie of reader eyeballs will probably increase due to the availability of more better-quality lower-cost books than ever before. I doubt the increased reading and increased quality will compensate for the number of flood of books published, however. It's going to get a lot tougher to make money in publishing for writers and publishers.

But will it reduce the desirability of publishing? The answer to that question depends upon the publisher's (or author's) objectives, and here I think authors have a significant survivability advantage.

Publishers that continue to add incredible value by publishing reader-pleasing books will continue to do well. Some publishers will quit because there's too much competition for too few eyeballs. The business of publishing is driven by dollars (it's a business), even though most of the people who work in publishing are driven by the love of books.

Writers write for reasons that can be very different from the reasons publishers publish. There's a pleasure and satisfaction that comes from self publishing that cannot be measured by the dollars. Many writers will continue to write and publish without pay, a luxury publishers cannot afford. Writers who must write primarily for the monetary reward may be forced to quit.

The publishing environment of the future will favor leaner publishers that can operate at lower costs (both to customers and the cost to writers in the form of earnings they give up in exchange for publishers services).

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 20:28:52 -0000

The magic of increased indie sales will be driven by multiple factors discussed at http://www.huffingtonpost.c... some of which include:

1. Increased numbers of indie ebooks hitting the market each year.

2. Indie authors learning to publish more professionally, which will lead to more higher-quality indie ebooks, which will increase their quality-competitiveness against traditionally published books.

3. Indie authors evolving their previously published books with better covers, better editing, better everything. Immortal books, ever-evolving, becoming more quality-competitive. Zombies resurrected as healthier living creatures as authors adopt best practices. :)

4. Increased percentage of first-time authors aspiring to self publish as their first choice, whereas six years ago virtually 0% of authors aspired to self-publish. Those who make indie publishing their first choice won't bother shopping their books to agents and publishers. These books will hit market as indie-first. Trad publishers will be able to recruit some of the better sellers, but not all.

5. Authors who've remained loyal to traditional publishers will increase their dabbling in the indie pool. Some will leave.

I touched on the increased competion in point 6 of the HuffPost piece: "Every publisher -- even indie authors -- will face increased competition
from the glut of high quality works that never go out of print."

I agree that the best choice isn't black and white. For some writers, it's indie, and for others, it's traditional. And for some, it's both.

Print constrained the supply of books. Ebooks will lead to a glut of high quality books where good enough isn't good enough for authors anymore.

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 20:10:26 -0000

No apology necessary! One of the reasons I shared the spreadsheet is for others to add and argue their own estimates. Although I think my estimates through 2013 are pretty close and my estimates beyond 2014 could turn out to be on the conservative side, if someone disagrees I'm not offended. There are a lot of assumptions built into this, and it's simplistic by design. My primary interest here is help people consider the implications if a few of these trends continue.

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:53:48 -0000

Yes, Peter. This doesn't get talked about enough. When you talk to an indie authors about what they love about self publishing, they'll often cite creative control and faster time-to-market above the higher "royalty" rates. They'll talk about the pleasure of it all. Writers often write and publish for reasons that are different from why publishers publish.

Re: Sometimes one more calculation can make what looked first like revolution resemble what it really is: evolution

MarkCoker — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 17:46:39 -0000

Hi Mike, I appreciate your added perspective. My estimates are based on dollars, not units, so apologies if that wasn't front and center clear. I mentioned that inside the downloadable spreadsheet at https://www.dropbox.com/s/e...

One of the most valuable contributions Hugh Howey made to the discussion surrounds money in the author's pocket. I'm now taking a stab at calculating that for a possible follow-on post based on my original spreadsheet estimates. Attached below is a *preliminary* stab, which assumes indie authors earn 60% of an ebook's digital list price and trad authors earn 15% of dlp. I multipled the percentage of the ebook market going to indies by .6, and the percentage going to trad authors by .15. It's tough to be precise on actuals. For Smashwords-distributed authors, they're earning 60% list for prices $.99 and up in most markets. For Amazon authors it's 35% list for sub $2.99 and $10+, and 35% for some markets if they're not exclusive. For trad authors, I might be a bit generous here. If the publisher is pricing everything everywhere between $2.99 and $9.99 (and we know they're not), AND they're under agency, then they're earning 70% list and 25% net of 70% list would be 17.5% list to the author. But if it's wholesale at 50%, it's 12.5% list to the author, and that's not counting the trad pubs that offer authors less than 25% net. And none of this figures in unearned advances. Anyway, these numbers are all estimates anyway, and I invite anyone to download my spreadsheet and develop and share a more robust model. What's initially striking to me from the graph below is that 2014 (assuming my initial estimates are even close) will be the first year that the total dollars earned by indies at retail will equal dollars earned by traditional authors. The next most striking thing is the slope of the curves. Because indies earn a net that is a multiple more than traditional, the linear marketshare growth I modeled for indies leads to an exponential differential in terms of the dollars going into indie authors' pockets vs. trad authors' pockets. It means indies are poised to capture a bigger share of the author profits if print continues to decline in importance. Of course, an additional limitation of such a graph is that it assumes the current net rates stay the same. Amazon could gut indie rates over the next few years, or trad publishers could increase their rates, or everyone could raise them. If my chart is even approximately accurate, though, it means when trad authors count their beans, they're going to start feeling some indie envy if the patterns play out, which could lead more authors to the indie camp, which would break my linear models as too conservative. None of this means indie authorship is the road to riches. It just means there will be much more competition for reader eyeballs than most people expect because there will be a glut of high-quality books that never go out of print and incredible pricing pressure on those books.

Re: Self-Publishers Should Not Be Called Authors

MarkCoker — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 23:09:02 -0000

Thanks, Amber!

Re: Self-Publishers Should Not Be Called Authors

MarkCoker — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 04:09:22 -0000

Michael, I'm a big believer in dreams. My bio at Twitter has always included the words, "dreamer and doer." I'd like to think I do both. Here's the dream world I live in, and it serves as the foundation upon which I and all the team members at Smashwords built our company: I believe every human being has something positive to contribute to the world. I believe every writer has a right to publish. I believe in democracy, fairness, freedom and freedom of expression. I believe there's amazing talent and creativity locked in the minds of ordinary people, and it can only come out when someone gives them a chance, provides them the tools and encouragement, and shares the knowledge of how to apply these tools. When someone believes in their potential and gives them a chance, great things can happen. People have been laughing at my crazy ideas about the potential of every writer for the last six years. The truth of which I speak is black and white. I see it every day. There a yin and yang to self publishing, just as there is to anything in life. There's the good and bad, the positive and the negative, the informed and the uninformed, the educated and the ignorant. All serve a purpose. Even your negativity here serves a purpose. I'm not sure how you can say self publishing is ruining bookselling when clearly it's going to save it.

Re: Self-Publishers Should Not Be Called Authors

MarkCoker — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 23:02:56 -0000

Michael, self publishing is going to save publishing and save books. Yes, self publishing will lead to the release of more poor-quality books than every before, but anyone who fixates on this fact is missing the bigger, more important picture. Self publishing will enable more better books to be published than ever could have been enabled by traditional publishers. Self publishing will lead to more better books, and more books that are priced affordably and accessibly to more readers than ever before. The online discovery systems for ebooks are much more flexible and robust than was ever possible in the print world, and these discovery systems will only get better. The books that are desirable to readers bubble up, and the poor-quality books will become invisible. You will find yourself awash in a glut of high-quality books, and it'll be thanks to self publishing.

Re: Self-Publishers Should Not Be Called Authors

MarkCoker — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 11:33:58 -0000

Traditional publishers value books based on commercial potential and commercial performance. This is a myopic value system, and it's ultimately destructive to book culture. I started Smashwords to change this value system. I hold these truths to be self-evident: Anyone who writes is a writer. Anyone who writes where readers read the writing is a published writer. People who tweet are published writers. Anyone who who writes a book and publishes it via Smashwords, Harper Collins or even their own web site is a published author. Readers decide if the author is worth reading. Authors who earn a lot of readers are popular authors, but they're not necessarily better writers or more professional writers than the unpopular writers. They're not any more or less deserving of the title, "author" than the next. Book sales are only one metric of popularity or quality. Reviews, word of mouth, reader satisfaction, peer reviews and downloads are also metrics. We have authors at Smashwords who refuse to price any of their books (they only price at free) and have earned hundreds of thousands of readers. We have authors who have priced at free and received only dozens of readers. Both are authors. Whether an author is successful or a failure can only be determined by the writer's personal value system and goals. Likewise, a "professional" author is someone who dedicates a significant portion of their time to writing and publishing. They make it their profession in the same way an entrepreneur is making their business their profession. They may or may not honor and apply professional best practices. You can be a professional author and still make little to no income. You can be a professional author and still write terrible books, in the same way you can open a restaurant and serve horrible food. So bottom line, book sales are but one of many metrics of professionalism. I think it's great these professional organizations are allowing indie authors into their groups, though I suspect over time they too will come to recognize how commercial results alone are an inadequate measure of professionalism because ultimately they'll shut out professional authors - wonderful writers - who write about unpopular or arcane topics.

Re: NYC vs. HEA

MarkCoker — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:15:51 -0000

The reporter isn't dinging other genres. He's celebrating romance, which deserves the celebration. Romance writers have been at the tip of the spear of the ebook revolution, and the genre dominates to this day. I'm surprised more reporters haven't picked up on this as Jesse did. The success of romance in no way diminishes the accomplishments of other indie writers in other genres.

Re: 1000+ days at Smashwords, see my comments above. It *has* happened and it *does* happen. Very rare, but it happens. That said, we're very upfront with our authors that the Smashwords store is small, not our primary business focus and that they'll get most of their sales through our retail distribution network.

Re: NYC vs. HEA

MarkCoker — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 00:06:33 -0000

Jackie, yes, there have been instances of authors moving 1,000+ copies per day at Smashwords, though those days are rare. When Jesse (the reporter) asked me how many copies a day our authors could sell, I answered 1,000+ was common for some of our bestsellers. I answered this question wearing my distributor hat, since the Smashwords distribution network is where our authors earn 90% of their sales. It's my mistake, not the reporter's, if the reporter thought I was referring to the Smashwords store. I wasn't. Nevertheless, 1,000+ days at the Smashwords store is truthful as well, so what the reporter reported is correct. Many of our authors have the power to direct thousands of orders to the Smashwords store. We pay 75% list for a $3.99 book, and authors can earn up to 80% list depending on the size of the customer's cart. I'd disagree about the reason most authors use Smashwords. Yes, we enable free pricing to B&N and every other retailer. But we offer much more than that. We help authors reach retailers and libraries they can't reach on their own, and even for retailers you can reach on your own, we can help you spend more time writing and less time fussing with distribution, metadata management and sales reports. We provide exclusive merchandising and metadata management tools. We also enable preorders to B&N, something most indies can't do direct. For sub $2.99 and $10+ prices at B&N, we actually we pay higher royalty rates (60% list) than authors earn going direct (40%).