Authors Electric

Interesting article in The Author magazine (Autumn 2021) about the secondhand books market, which I've suspected for a while might be competing in a significant way with the new books market from which authors and their publishers traditionally get paid for their work. According to the article, the estimated size of the secondhand book market in the UK is likely to be worth as much as £500,000,000 (a cool half billion), which is apparently around 20% of the market for new books. Looking at my personal book purchases this year, I'm actually surprised is it isn't more. Granted we have had a remarkable year, with both bookshops and libraries closed to the public during lockdowns... but would this really make much of a difference to the proportion of secondhand book sales compared to new book sales? After all, both types are readily available online from Amazon and other retailers. Any estimate of market share no doubt depends if you count ebooks as books, and - perhaps more i...

          Well, it's been available on Amazon's Kindle platform for some time now. But at last, at last , it's available as a paperback book, published by PriceClan. A paperback, that will clatter through your letter box, wrapped up in brown card, and solidly thump onto the mat. Or carpet. Or floorboards, or whatever you have under your letter-box.           I set out to achieve this more than a year ago, when I received lots of emails from teachers, asking where they could buy copies of the book. It's always gone down rather well in schools, when I've read it aloud, and it seems many schools want to use it as a class reader.           But it was out of print, and second-hand copies were selling on eBay and through Amazon market-place at silly money.           So I commissioned new illustrations from Andrew Price, and published the book on Ki...

I don’t usually study the business section in my local newspaper, but a recent report on one of the big publishers, I won’t name any names, caught my eye. What the report said was – the publisher “reported increased operating profits during the final quarter. Despite a 2% year-on-year fall in volume, the publisher said margins had been boosted by the lower relative cost of publishing ebooks in the new digital environment. In turn, the increased proportion of online sales led to a reduced rate of returns.” The report went on to say “ebook sales continued to show increased market share in the UK, growing 58% year-on-year during the four months to the end of December.” Hang on a minute though. I’ve been eyeball to eyeball with various publishers and they all sing to the same tune when you confront them with the lesser costs of digital publishing. Not so, they say. There is no saving. There is still the editing, the proofing, the marketing, and the publicity (what publicity? I think...

If bicycle salesmen peddle their wares, does that mean that authors write theirs off? Okay, I haven't actually lost control of my temper, but I am very, very cross at what appears to be loss of control over one of my books - well, two to be more precise, although they're one now ... Let me explain. Many years ago, I wrote a short, practical horsy book which my publisher produced at a sensible price and size, an ideal present as either a Christmas stocking filler or all-year-round gift for all ages and we were all happy. My publisher's company then passed into other hands: and ten years later I wrote a sequel to the original book which was published in a similar format and at the same price. Again, we were all happy. The two books have both been (and currently still are) steady sellers in the UK, and have been continuously in print for around 25 and 15 years respectively - not bad. The company once more passed into new hands, and the US rights were sold: I could hear my new...