The Gravy Train has Run Out of Meat - by Debbie Bennett
2014 was a
defining year for independent publishing. If we can’t see this yet, I’m
sure we will be saying it a few years down the line – those people that are
still involved that is. I predict that 2015 will be the year that the scales
stop tipping, that more indies will try to move back to more traditional
methods, or simply give up altogether.
Why do I say that? My ear is always to the ground. There
are links I find on facebook and elsewhere. I often retweet these
(@debjbennett), if I think they will interest others.
Kindle Unlimited is surely the biggest game-changer
since KDP Select. Pay a monthly subscription and you can read/borrow as many books
as you like. This follows the rest of the media industry; KU is to books what Spotify is to music and Netflix is to film. BUT – and it’s a big
but – KU doesn’t treat independent publishers the same way as it treats
traditional publishers. For the trads (and a few selected special indies), it’s
another string – for the rest it’s a guessing game as the payouts are fixed; regardless
of the length/price of the work, a 99c book earns the same as a
$10.99 book. And the amount depends on the size of the “pot” and endless other factors. And it’s exclusive to KDP Select, ie: pull all your books
from all other platforms and Amazon will pay you an arbitrary amount it will
decide.
Like all new ideas, it started out sugar-coated. The payout was high
initially in the Autumn launch, and indies scrambled to get on board – in many cases
to earn less than they were getting for a direct sale! Many of us saw our
sales figures plummet and some authors are finding they can no longer make a
living at this job. Rumours abound that Amazon will reduce the payout
further, non-KU books will lose “visibility” on Amazon, and at some point all Amazon ebooks will be forced into KU – whether we want to play or not.
Like it or not, it seems that subscription services may be
the future for ebooks. But while sites like Scribd
at least play fair and treat all authors the same, Amazon seems determined to create
and maintain a divisive class structure amongst writers. Eggs and baskets, in
my opinion.
Author Holly Ward sums it all up quite neatly here.
Tax Changes
And then there’s tax law. I don’t want to bore you with
the intricacies of VAT, but instead of the VAT on an ebook being a paltry 3%, it
is now 20% in line with VAT rates on everything else.
This has two effects – one of which I’m sure is
unintentional on behalf of the government. The point of this new law was allegedly to
stop Amazon trading from Luxembourg so it could use the lower VAT rate (3%) in
force there. The effect will be to potentially shut down many small businesses
which will be unable to comply with the new legislation. And where will their
customers go for their ebooks and other digital downloads and services? Oh –
that will be Amazon, of course.
The other effect of course is that ebooks now cost more.
By the time you read this, ebooks in the UK will have increased in price
significantly. And the author won’t benefit from this price increase – in fact many
authors will absorb the cost themselves so as to remain competitive. And we’ll
be in the bizarre situation in the UK where a paper book is zero-rated for VAT
and a digital book is standard-rated at 20%.
Fantasy author Juliet McKenna summaries a lot of this on
her blog. And business blogs are also reporting on the closure of online businesses.
And if that wasn't complicated enough, Italy now has a two tier VAT system (according to a recent Amazon email) - depending on whether your ebook has an ISBN or not! 4% VAT with an ISBN and 22% without an ISBN. You couldn't make it up ...
And if that wasn't complicated enough, Italy now has a two tier VAT system (according to a recent Amazon email) - depending on whether your ebook has an ISBN or not! 4% VAT with an ISBN and 22% without an ISBN. You couldn't make it up ...
Other Stuff
What else has changed? Markets are expanding – in China,
Korea and other parts of Asia, the ebook market is growing exponentially and
they are not buying their ebooks from Amazon. For many indie authors, this
market is still all but inaccessible as the two main aggregators Smashwords and
Draft 2 Digital don’t yet have outlets there. There are other aggregators, but
many charge annual fees for hosting and more fees for making changes. For many
authors with ever-more uncertain incomes, paying up-front simply isn’t viable,
not when we have to buy in our own editing and design services too. But there are
pros and cons to every opportunity.
Many indie authors are going back to their traditional
roots – or embracing traditional publishing for the first time. They go armed
with knowledge of the real world, with different expectations and the
rose-tinted spectacles removed. Hopefully this will enable them to take charge
of their careers and negotiate better contracts that benefit everybody.
And many authors are giving up. They’ve had their fun,
made a bit of money and have decided that now the shine is wearing off to go
and do something else. Good luck to them.
Those of us who remain will need to be a lot more
business-savvy in 2015. We’ll need to create our own opportunities and stand up
for ourselves. The gravy train of indie publishing has long left the station.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch captures a lot of the zeitgeist in
a lot more detail in this
post. Essential reading for the indie writer.
www.debbiebennett.co.uk
Comments
As for KU, heaven only knows what the ultimate outcome will be for authors...
I think it's probably true that the gold-rush mentality that once permeated the self-publishing world has begun to peter out. It might not be an entirely bad thing. A few years ago, there seemed to be a feeling in some quarters that anyone could type out anything in a Word document, upload it to Amazon, and make money. Now that it's becoming increasingly clear that it really isn't that easy, those who once treated it primarily as a money-making scheme and didn't particularly care about the quality of their products will in all likelihood move on to something else.
Chris - thanks for the tip about iBooks. Sales on these are low for me at the moment but as my books are available on there as well I'll start plugging these as well.
I still think the best advice is write more books and write better books!