Summary: It would be easy to get distracted by monthly sales reports for books this year. Year-over-year sales are tanking. In my calculus, a 5% drop in sales is cause for concern. In the book business overall, where the profit margin is a thin 3%, on average, it raises the stakes.
All book sellers dealing in print books, be it online or in a local bookstore, carry the psychic weight of being in a DYING INDUSTRY.
Author’s, publishers and retailers all seem to form a death watch, albeit a decades long, protracted, death-watch for when books go over the cliff. While the shoe hasn’t dropped in the same way that newspapers went off the cliff in 2007-2008 or how the music business went off the cliff in 2008-2009.
When you sell legacy media products, especially the one which has been threatened since the invention of radio, TV and now the internet, you do have to..re-frame the sneaking suspicion that a marketing pink slip is in the mail.
“Dear Von Melee, we regret to inform you that your services in the bookselling business are no longer required. No further explanation is required except, we’re full and the ship’s sailed. Sincerely, The River.”
Only keeping your eye on that mailbox is counter-productive and fills a void in a less than optimal way than I’m sure you desire. But big, honking data-sets, such as those provided by the US Census Bureau, are almost always misleading.
It’s hard. I’m researching selling mobile phones. I look at the big, big amounts of sales data in mobile phones and devices, and get blind to growth. You can also allow positive growth industry data to, breed over-confidence in your whole sale skills. Mobile phones are the opposite of the book business. A growth industry!
Beware the big, honking database, screaming in red-letter headlines
Books Sales Down 7.3% for The Year!
Chaos ensues. But does that number really correlate to your store? It doesn’t to mine because sales are up in 2014.
It can be easy to get caught up in data sets which are negative for the sector but not reflective of your niche. You are assuming that the people collecting this data do it in a consistent and accurate way. Leaving that issue aside, it’s the segments which are crucial.
The truth is that in 2014 there are,
- No big Fifty Shades or Twilight books. At least that haven’t emerged.
- Non-fiction books, in their virgin print form, have been inching up and outperforming novels, year over year. Novels are more, ready-for- eBook.
- Improving economy and job propsects means, “Finally I don’t have to sit around and just read all on A Friday night!”
The truth behind the truth is that declining revenue isn’t necessarily declining volume of products sold and certainly not in the book store markets. Volume is up across the board and much eBook sales are free (they pay with their attention) or not officially counted.
Authors may have a better chance of making a living than ever! Those data-sets are murky at best and I also feel like becoming a self-published author seems to have better chances. Say the chances of winning a city wide lottery. Better than the top-down publishing world pre-internet, which was like winning a world-wide lottery.
But what are some of the underlying trends and data that you should care about .
The book industry, being a mass medium, is as hit driven as the music and movie business. The hits finance the flops. Hit books become movies and movies make Big Publishing their fat year-end bonuses.
To the data,
2012 was a slight growth year because of Fifty Shades mainly, and not a broad increase across all sectors. The huge sales of that trilogy was in no uncertain terms, aided by eBook readers since it increases privacy.
You could BDSM-lit-chick out on the train in.
In 2013 eBook sales slowed drastically and print non-fiction was up 1.1% which ain’t bad when you approach the book business as a declining sector, which probably isn’t news to you.
As an aside, I wonder if people, do buy a book shop with the belief that book sales will somehow start to grow, if there were just better books out there. This isn’t true. The industry is in decline. Won’t bottom out, but won’t see growth anymore.
The dusty, musty used books are also holding their own, as selling on Amazon continues to enjoy a closer to 10% to 12% profit for sellers vs. the 3% which is primarily a number made up of successful brick-and-mortar book shops.
I feel non-fiction print is selling better and will outpace other areas of print in 2014 because non-fiction eBooks don’t fulfill their promise yet. You can’t remember the title or author because you never see the cover and flipping through to different areas for a re-read is not like, good old musty dusty print now is it?
Cookbooks are another durable non-fiction print title. Tablets don’t like cooking residue all that much, online recipe stealers! And cookbooks are great for gifting also.
The point is that examples of counter narratives to the Big Data of book sales being down, exist everywhere. The End of the End of Books! Not quite yet.
I’m burying the lede on this one which is that online bookselling is up 16% in 2014 and that growth is not just eBooks. My store is up more than 50% year over, for print.
Your Store Can Still Be a Hit
You are here to create an online store. Take charge of the dream and know what your overall industry growth is and then find out why you are selling more.
It’s because you are choosing products that are growing and in any declining industry, there is a lot of money to be made on trend busters and items on clearance
Don’t let Big Data distract you from the Big Narrative you see play out everyday in your store.