Big Five Publishing: A Murmur of Denial

Lately, a strange murmur has rippled across the publishing industry and echoed through my inbox; e books are just a fad, close your eyes, take a deep breath and they’ll go away.

Despite  Nielson’s own findings that print sales of adult fiction have declined by 37%  since 2009 to the tune of over £150m loss, a brief flurry of physical book sales at Christmas appears to have triggered an industry-wide fantasy.

Articles proliferated across the web declaring the e book dead. I must have read Tim Waterstone’s quote half a dozen times, “— e-books have developed a share of the market, of course they have, but every indication – certainly from America – shows the share is already in decline. The indications are that it will do exactly the same in the UK.”

A revisionist reality began to take shape. And across the post modern boardrooms of the Big Five, I could practically hear the murmurs of denial.

At this year’s London Book Fair Publishing for Digital Minds Conference, keynote speaker Author David Nicholls characterized publishers as social crusaders saying, “But we should remember that the Luddites were not simply against technology, they were for social justice and a fair deal…When bookshops, independent or otherwise, are under threat from ruthless and predatory competition, it is hard to discard old allegiances.”

Careful there, throwing the L word around can be dangerous.

And yet…. a dose of reality arrived today with the May 2015 Author Earning Report which looks at 20,000 bestselling e books, including books not counted by Bowker, AAP, BISG and Nielson, the books without ISBN Numbers that make up 30% of the e book sales on Amazon in the US.

What does the Author’s Earning Report find? That Indie authors are taking a bite out of Big Five Sales. Some of the highlights:

Big Five Publishers have lost earnings by 20%

Big Five Publishers are steadily raising e book prices (Amazon has now added a disclaimer: This Price set by the publisher.)

Amazon indie authors earned 40% of all e book sales on Amazon, more daily income from digital royalties than all Big 5 published authors, combined.

After the knock down drag out fight between Hachette and Amazon for control of e book pricing. What The Big Five got was higher prices, lower sales, and less earnings for their authors.

So the good news for Indie authors is—the market share for self-published authors is growing.

The report also reveals something more sublime. What readers really care about is a good story. They don’t give a hoot whether the novel was published by the Big Five, a small publisher or an indie artist. As Shakespeare said, “The truth will out.”