The Indie Ebook Revolution
Writing for Change
San FranciscoNovember 13, 2010
Mark Coker Founder, Smashwords
My Background
About me
• Founder of Smashwords
• Free ebook publishing and distribution platform for indie authors
• We distribute ebooks to multiple major retailers (Apple, Sony, B&N, Kobo, etc.)
• Author of…
How Smashwords Works
• UPLOAD
• Author/publisher uploads a Microsoft Word file, formatted to our Style Guide
• CONVERT
• We automatically convert to 9 ebook formats
• PUBLISH
• Ready for immediate sale online
• DISTRIBUTE
• Distribute to major retailers
• GET PAID
• Authors/publishers receive 85% of net
Indie ebooks published at Smashwords
140
6,000
24,000
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
2008 2009 2010 (Nov)
A REVOLUTION IS UPON US
CHANGE IS AFOOT
ooh,pretty!
BOOKS ARE ENDANGERED
WE MUST SAVE BOOKS
Books are Precious
• Long form content essential for
• deep dive knowledge immersion
• entertainment
• Books are vessels for cultural preservation
• Noah’s ark
• Promotes cross-cultural understanding
TECHNOLOGY IS COLLIDING WITH PUBLISHING
Technology Represents the Means by Which Consumer Desires are Realized
Things Touched by Technology Usually Become Faster, Smaller, Cheaper
Books are in Jeopardy
• In a world of faster, smaller, cheaper, print books have lost ground
• Expensive
• Unaffordable to vast majority of world’s literate population
• Unavailable, inaccessible to global market
• Archaic rights practices limit distribution
• Geographic limitations of print distribution
BIG PUBLISHERS ARE MAKING THE PROBLEM WORSE
UNTIL RECENTLY, BIG PUBLISHERS HAD A MONOPOLY ON THE PRINTING PRESSES AND
DISTRIBUTION TO BOOKSTORES
Publishers were the deciders
• Publishers controlled:
• Who got published
• Who got distributed
• What readers could read
IT WAS A SWEET RACKET FOR PUBLISHERS
Readers wanted books
Publishers controlled the supply
$
$
$
$$ $
$
$
$
BUT THEN THE INTERNET HAPPENED
… THE RULES CHANGED FOREVER
TRADITIONAL PUBLISHERS ILL-EQUIPPED TO SAVE BOOKS
uh oh!
They’re too slow
• 12-18 month release cycles
… their expenses are too high
… they’re exposed to too much risk
• Pay author advances
• Can’t predict demand
• many books fail and don’t earn out
• Broken supply chain
• 30%+ of printed books returned to publisher unsold
• Amazon is eating publishers for lunch
• Vertically integrated from authors to readers
Publishers try to mitigate risk by giving bean counters increased influence
… bean counters make poor decisions in the name of risk mitigation
• Adopt author-unfriendly policies
• Acquire fewer books from unproven authors
• Paying lower advances
• Require authors to assume more editing, marketing responsibility
• Adopt customer-unfriendly policies
• Favor “commercial” books
• Scarcity tactics to maintain higher prices
• Limit worldwide distribution
WE NOW LIVE IN A WORLD OF UNLIMITED ABUNDANCEAND CONSUMER CHOICE
YET THE BUSINESS OF BOOK PUBLISHING HAS CHANGED
LITTLE IN DECADES
(change is afoot)
Readers Demand Abundance and Freedom of Choice
• Customer drivers:
• Price
• Convenience
• Selection
• What Wal-Mart did to small town businesses, what B&N and Borders did to indie book stores, what Amazon is doing to B&M bookstores, what the Internet will now do to publishing
• Don’t blame Wal-Mart, B&N or Amazon – they’re only providing what customers want
• Books, bookstores, publishers and authors must now compete against unlimited abundance
TO SAVE BOOKS, WE MUST CHANGE BOOKS
AND CHANGE PUBLISHING
How to Save Books
• To save books, we must leverage technology to make books:
• Smaller, faster, cheaper
• More available
• More discoverable
• More accessible
• More compelling than alternative content options
The Better Book is Here
• It’s called an ebook
• Same book, only better
• Smaller, faster, cheaper
• More available
• More discoverable
• More accessible
• More functional
Ebooks as a percentage of US wholesale trade market
Source: Association of American Publishers, publishers.org
0%
1%
2%
3%
4%
5%
6%
7%
8%
9%
10%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
As an author, the power to save books is in your hands
Indie Authors + Ebooks + New eBook Supply Chain Will Save Books
Indie Ebook Authors Have Opportunity to Better Serve the New Customer
Requirements
• Benefits of indie ebooks
• faster release cycles
• instant access to global market
• democratized distribution
• closer to customers
• lower expenses
• no paper!
• never go out of print
• can offer lower cost, higher profit books
The Economics of Indie Ebooks Will Drive Increased Indie Authorship
• Higher profits than traditional
• 70-100% net for indie e- vs. 5-25% traditional
• Price ebooks for less yet still make more per copy than traditionally pubbed print authors
• $8 indie ebook earns over $6.00, vs <$.40 trad MMP
• $.99 indie ebook earns more than $8.00 trad MMP
• Lower price = reach more readers = more sales at higher profits per sale
MMP=Mass market paperback, aka “pocket book” in some countries
My Predictions:
Ebook sales dollar volume will exceed print within 5 years
Ebook unit volume will exceed print within 3 years
Summary
• Books are essential to the future of mankind
• We must save books by changing books and changing publishing
• Books face increased competition from alternative, lower cost sources for entertainment and knowledge
• Indie ebooks can make books more available and more accessible to more people
• Thanks to ebooks, opportunity to connect readers with books has never been greater
Thank you for listening!
Q&A
Where to find Mark Coker:
Web: www.smashwords.com
Blog: blog.smashwords.com
HuffPo: huffingtonpost.com/mark-coker
Twitter: @markcoker
Email: first initial second initial
@smashwords.com
