Book Printing Revisited

[QT Luong]

The Amazon discount may looks helfty, but my understanding is that any bookstore takes a standard 50% off list.

[paulr]

How does it work with amazon ... do they just sell on consignment, and you take care of the shipping?

[tim atherton]

I did have a whole article somewhere about selling through amazon for self-published books - but of course I can't find it now...

[tim atherton]

ha - I'd posted it on your list Pual

don't recall where it actually came from....

Small publishers say Amazon.com has opened big doorsTuesday, August 16, 2005
Updated at 10:17 AM EDT

Associated Press

Seattle - Cellular biologist Bruce Lipton holds no fond memories of his
early struggles to get his book published.

One by one, the big houses in New York looked at Biology of Belief:
Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, but eventually
said no, suggesting his theory that signals outside cells control genes was
too radical for mainstream readers.

"I wasted a whole year with them," Mr. Lipton fumed.

Then he signed on with an independent press that relies heavily on
Amazon.com Inc. Since then, he and his publisher say, more than 42,000
copies have sold in six months.

"To go in and end up using Amazon as a way of getting out there and jumping
ahead of a lot of the big corporations ... that was really fun," said Mr.
Lipton, a former University of Wisconsin medical school professor who lives
in Santa Cruz., Calif., about 100 miles south of his publisher, Santa
Rosa-based Elite Books.

With its limitless shelf space, Seattle-based Amazon has helped countless
other authors and small publishers earn the same bragging rights in the past
decade, giving readers throughout the world instant access to books they
might never have found.

"Book publishing at one time was clubby, and that really has changed," Al
Greco, senior researcher at the Institute for Publishing Research in
Bergenfield, N.J., says

Using data Amazon has collected about what its customers buy, considered
buying, browsed but never bought, recommended to others or even wished
someone would buy for them, the bookseller is able to recommend more
purchases and direct searches toward products it thinks a customer is most
likely to want.

In the process, it has essentially made the buying public part of a
marketing machine that's driven up demand for books that once might have
been much harder to find.

Ask small publishers what they like most about Amazon, and they'll say it's
the global reach. Another huge plus, they say, is that Amazon pays its
bills - and on time.

"I spent seven months trying to collect from a major bookstore chain. Amazon
drops the money in my checking account every single month without fail,"
says Cathy Stucker, who runs her own publishing company out of her home in
Sugar Land, Texas, and has sold hundreds of copies of her main title, The
Mystery Shopper's Manual on Amazon.

It's common for publishers to spend months waiting to get paid, then receive
a shipment of unsold books returned - often with an order for a new batch of
books. That makes cash flow a big problem for the little guys.

"Basically, they get your inventory on consignment," says David Cole,
founder of Bay Tree Publishing in Berkley, Calif.

By comparison, Amazon typically orders books in fairly small numbers and
rarely returns them.

Greg Greely, vice-president of the company's worldwide media division, says
Amazon sends back less than 10 per cent of the books it orders, while some
reports suggest that brick-and-mortar stores return up to half of their
shipments.

In 1998, when Amazon created its Advantage program for small publishers, it
touted the service as a way to help level the playing field in an industry
that has long favoured the big dogs. Today, many small publishers say it's
worked.

"All publishers are basically equal, because just about all publishers'
titles are on Amazon and can be delivered to your door in a couple days,"
says Kent Sturgis, president of the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Amazon keeps track of sales and inventory for its Advantage publishers, and
automatically reorders books when stocks are running low. Members pay a
$29.95 fee, and Amazon takes a 55 per cent cut of sales - about what most
wholesalers charge.

Amazon would not disclose how many members belong to its Advantage program,
other than to say "tens of thousands." It also wouldn't discuss details of a
separate co-op fee system that has generated grumbling from some small
publishers. Amazon started out selling nothing but books, but now sells
power tools, beauty supplies and virtually everything else. It doesn't
disclose how many books it sells each year. Nor do its major competitors.

Because those numbers remain tightly held secrets, no one is sure how many
books get sold on-line each year, though experts say it's a growing slice of
the publishing pie.

Internet book sales make up the bulk of so-called "direct-to-consumer"
sales, which also include sales from catalogues and toll-free numbers. While
direct-to-consumer sales have been rising in recent years, sales at Barnes &
Noble, Inc., and Borders Group, the nation's two largest book retail chains,
have remained relatively stagnant.

Researcher Greco's best estimate is that on-line sales account for 7 per
cent to 10 per cent of total U.S. book sales annually - up from virtually
nil 10 years ago.

"Without Amazon," he says, "I think it's safe to say there would've been a
larger erosion in sales."

Some experts say that Amazon hurts independent bookstores, which can't match
its vast inventory. Others contend that Amazon doesn't bear all the blame
because its rise coincided with the growth of giant bookstores and mass
merchandisers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., Target Corp., and wholesale
price clubs.

Powell's Books, a chain of local bookstores in Portland, Ore., has seen its
sales increase steadily in the last several years. The company points to
both its own Web sales, which started in 1994 - a year before Amazon went
live on the Internet - and Amazon's success making millions of people feel
comfortable shopping on-line.

"Once they were converted and the idea was no longer scary to them, we could
market to them and position ourselves as an alternative," Dave Weich,
Powell's director of marketing and development, says.

Books, music and videos, which Amazon lumps into a single category, bring in
most of the company's money. But as part of global revenue, the media
division is shrinking slightly. Last year, media products accounted for 74
per cent of $6.9-billion in revenue - down from 79 per cent of 2002's total
sales of $3.9-billion.

Barnes & Noble's on-line division did $420-million in sales last year -
about 9 per cent of the company's total sales, and up from $151-million the
year before.

Many publishers say Amazon's benefits outweigh its pitfalls, but one gripe
is widespread: Amazon has driven up sales of used books - great for thrifty
readers, but bad, they say, for authors who depend on royalties.

"That's done more to hurt publishing, big and small, than anything, and
readers don't think about it," says Fran Baker, a romance writer who runs
her own publishing company, Delphi Books, in Lee's Summit, Mo., outside
Kansas City.

Amazon, though, has seen used books spur sales of new books. "We've found
customers that do buy used books are more likely to come back and buy [new
books] from that publisher or that author," Greely says. "It's a way of
introducing customers to new genres, new areas of interest."