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There was a time in the late '90s when a whole lot of mall bookstores closed, as major chain bookstores moved to their own nearby dedicated superstores, and others found that they couldn't compete with the superstores.
The closing bookstores returned or stripped books in cartons that had never been opened. For a while, sell through really sucked. Publishing took a hit, but it's recovered.
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Now let's look at this silly Novel Idea plan. Let's say that it's true that 40% of book purchases are impluse buys. What does this say? That people came to the bookstore looking for the latest Grisham, but while they were there they saw something else on the shelf that looked interesting, picked it up, looked at the back cover, skimmed the first chapter, and decided to buy it.
That requires that the Grisham be on the shelf to get the customer in range of the other interesting book. Who is going to go into a POD/self/vanity bookstore for its own sake?
But let's leave that aside. Let's assume that, somehow, magically people will go into these bookstores.
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According to Mr. Ferm, the authors need to sell one book per month to break even. (Let's assume, for the moment, that that's true, too). That's twelve books per store per year.
According to the Author's Guild, the average midlist title sells two to three copies per store per year.
In other words, even if these were normal commercial books, priced like normal commercial books, books that you've heard of by authors you've heard of, in bookstores readers were likely to enter -- you'd expect to sell only one fifth of the number of books Mr. Ferm tells us you'd have to sell in order to break even.
But ...
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Shoot, let us assume you win the lottery, too. [/font]
Now let's look at real-world costs.
Say you have a typical PublishAmerica book: $19.95 retail.
Say Novel Idea really does have 30 stores by the end of 2005, and say that the author wants to be in all of them, to be stocked in brick-and-mortar bookstores from sea to shining sea.
30 bookstores times five books equals 150 books. Let's say the author buys them at 50% off (initial author's purchase). Cost = $1,496.25 for books plus $77.50 shipping equals $1,573.75. Plus thirty bookstores times sixty dollars per bookstore: 30 * $60 = $1,800.
$1,800 plus $1,573.75 = $3,373.75, which is a pretty serious hit on anyone's MasterCard.
At the end of the year, if the author sold two books per store (which is the most you can reasonably expect), then income equals 2 * 30 * $19.95, for a total of $1,197, and a net loss of $2,176.75.
Novel Idea replaces those two books directly from PA, for a cost of $19.95 - 40% discount (bookseller's discount), or $23.94 * 30 stores = $718.20 (plus $32.50 shipping). Author earns royalties of $57.60. Author's total income = $1,254.60. Author's loss at the end of the year: -$2,119.15.
Novel Idea's gross at the end of the year (for that author): (30 * $60) - ((30 *$23.94 )+ $32.50) = $1,800 - $750.70 = $1,049.30
If they get 4,000 authors: Gross income = $4,197,200
Not too friggin' shabby.
Of course, if no books sell, the author loses the whole $3,373.75, while Novel Idea grosses $7,200,000.
That is to say: If no books sell at all, then Novel Idea earns $3,002,800 more.
Tell me why Novel Idea is going to try real hard to sell books?
Or did I misunderstand something?
The closing bookstores returned or stripped books in cartons that had never been opened. For a while, sell through really sucked. Publishing took a hit, but it's recovered.
=============
Now let's look at this silly Novel Idea plan. Let's say that it's true that 40% of book purchases are impluse buys. What does this say? That people came to the bookstore looking for the latest Grisham, but while they were there they saw something else on the shelf that looked interesting, picked it up, looked at the back cover, skimmed the first chapter, and decided to buy it.
That requires that the Grisham be on the shelf to get the customer in range of the other interesting book. Who is going to go into a POD/self/vanity bookstore for its own sake?
But let's leave that aside. Let's assume that, somehow, magically people will go into these bookstores.
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]
[/font]
According to Mr. Ferm, the authors need to sell one book per month to break even. (Let's assume, for the moment, that that's true, too). That's twelve books per store per year.
According to the Author's Guild, the average midlist title sells two to three copies per store per year.
In other words, even if these were normal commercial books, priced like normal commercial books, books that you've heard of by authors you've heard of, in bookstores readers were likely to enter -- you'd expect to sell only one fifth of the number of books Mr. Ferm tells us you'd have to sell in order to break even.
But ...
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica]
Shoot, let us assume you win the lottery, too. [/font]
Now let's look at real-world costs.
Say you have a typical PublishAmerica book: $19.95 retail.
Say Novel Idea really does have 30 stores by the end of 2005, and say that the author wants to be in all of them, to be stocked in brick-and-mortar bookstores from sea to shining sea.
30 bookstores times five books equals 150 books. Let's say the author buys them at 50% off (initial author's purchase). Cost = $1,496.25 for books plus $77.50 shipping equals $1,573.75. Plus thirty bookstores times sixty dollars per bookstore: 30 * $60 = $1,800.
$1,800 plus $1,573.75 = $3,373.75, which is a pretty serious hit on anyone's MasterCard.
At the end of the year, if the author sold two books per store (which is the most you can reasonably expect), then income equals 2 * 30 * $19.95, for a total of $1,197, and a net loss of $2,176.75.
Novel Idea replaces those two books directly from PA, for a cost of $19.95 - 40% discount (bookseller's discount), or $23.94 * 30 stores = $718.20 (plus $32.50 shipping). Author earns royalties of $57.60. Author's total income = $1,254.60. Author's loss at the end of the year: -$2,119.15.
Novel Idea's gross at the end of the year (for that author): (30 * $60) - ((30 *$23.94 )+ $32.50) = $1,800 - $750.70 = $1,049.30
If they get 4,000 authors: Gross income = $4,197,200
Not too friggin' shabby.
Of course, if no books sell, the author loses the whole $3,373.75, while Novel Idea grosses $7,200,000.
That is to say: If no books sell at all, then Novel Idea earns $3,002,800 more.
Tell me why Novel Idea is going to try real hard to sell books?
Or did I misunderstand something?
I wonder if that bunch is on parole yet?
There was one who said in his article that it took him an hour to find any e-books on-line at all. I felt like writing back to him and telling him about this marvelous invention called a search engine. 