Steve Windwalker If you are one who shared the frustration of a strange error message when you tried to access the Scribd Upload to Sell page, perhaps after reading our earlier post, Scribd Beta DIY Launch for eBook Authors and Publishers Looks Viable, you’ll be happy to learn that the problem is solved. Here is a screen shot of the page as of this morning, May 22, 2009:
It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out. As Kindle owners have become increasingly savvy about how to get free online content onto their Kindles — a process for which Kindle Nation happily takes some of the credit — it has become apparent that Kindle sales of blogs and newspapers have declined relative to the Kindle editions of books. Not by just a little, either. As I write this on Tuesday, May 19, here are the latest sales rankings for the three best-selling blogs in the Kindle Store:
These are titles that have spent significant time among the top 100 overall in the Kindle Store in the past, so I have to admit that the phrase “sink like a stone” comes to mind. And the word “Wow.” This can’t be what those “bloggers” were hoping for, or what they expected. These sales rankings translate into just a handful or two of units per week.
It’s too early to say how the new blogs are doing, since none of them will emerge from their 14-day Free Trial Period or, consequently, have sales unit reports or trackable sales rankings for another week. Prior to the beta launch last week, only 92 Kindle blogs had been introduced in the previous 90 days, and the bestseller among them, a New York Times called Laugh Lines, showed a lackluster sales ranking of #96,998 in the Kindle Store.
Unlike Kindle Books, Kindle Blogs have standardized prices set by Amazon with no negotiation between the blogger or publisher and Amazon. When I made Kindle Nation Daily available as a Kindle Blog, Amazon unilaterally set its price at $1.99 a month. While I will certainly endeavor to make it worth that price, my hope had been to set its price 99 cents per month, but I failed in my efforts to get Amazon to bring the price down. Although I was disappointed at the response that I received under the salutation “Greetings from Amazon Blogs” — “I’m sorry, but please note that Amazon will define the price based on what we deem is a fair value for customers” — I am certainly willing to grant the possibility that this is the best approach for Kindle owners, in that it should mitigate against some of the mixed signals and Wild West atmosphere that have developed with Kindle Book prices. (Mind you, I am a strong believer in free-market pricing for discretionary items, but the Kindle Books pricing market is not a free market, given Amazon’s deep discounting intervention to try to keep as many books as possible at $9.99 or under).
As these thousands of newly offered Kindle Blogs begin to acquire sales rankings after Memorial Day, we’ll see what relationships seem to emerge between prices and sales rankings. For my own part, I took some encouragement from the message I received from one Kindle technical account manager, who researched the issue for me on Day 1 of Kindle Nation Daily’s life as a Kindle blog and reported back: “I was told that we don’t negotiate the pricing with the blogger at this time, but personally feel that the $1.99 stamp is kind of a compliment. (As in, we feel that your blog is so cool that customers would pay more for it.)” Oh well, don’t think I don’t know when I am being sweet talked; it’s just that I like it.
Another difference between Kindle Blogs and Kindle Books involves the royalties paid by Amazon to the rights holders. Kindle Book royalties for books uploaded via the Kindle Digital Text Platform or Amazon’s Mobipocket subsidiary range from 35% up to 87.5% of the actual proceeds (price paid by the customer) or 35% of the suggested retail price set by the publisher. Since Kindle Blogs are not discounted, Amazon pays a set fee of 30% of the retail price to all bloggers and blog publishers.
For an insightful analysis of the economics of blogging for the Kindle, and whether it makes sense, I recommend an article entitled “Is Amazon Kindle Publishing For Blogs Beta Program a good deal for bloggers?” on the GeekMBA360 blog.
One last note on all of this, upon which I’ve touched before: The relative demise of Kindle Store sales of blogs and newspapers, compared with Kindle Books, is certainly due in some small (or large?) part to rising use of the Kindle for iPhone (and iPod Touch) App, since the App does not allow for the purchase of periodicals from the Kindle Store.
(And yes, stay tuned for some discussion of the blogs that I am publishing for the Kindle, what they provide, and why, as well as a guide to other new Kindle blogs).
Cartoon Credit: Thanks to Dave Walker and We Blog Cartoons for permission to use the great cartoon above.
San Francisco-based startup Scribd has just launched the beta version of a potentially exciting new opportunity for authors, publishers, and readers. I hesitated before including the DIY label in the subject line because it may be misleading, given that Scribd has done some business with major publishers such as Random House, according to today’s New York Times piece, “Scribd Invites Writers to Upload Their Work and Name Their Price.” But Scribd’s roots are all about document-sharing and a Youtube-like DIY approach for those who understand that uploading is the new downloading.
Scribd stands out among innovators in the arena of connecting digital text authors and publishers with digital readers, because (1) it offers some compelling reasons for faith that it could actually work; and (2) it is not Amazon.
By “actually work,” I mean that it could actually lead to significant sales and exposure for ebook authors and other content providers. By “not Amazon,” I am getting at the notion that, if it proves viable, Scribd could actually provide authors and publishers with an effective counterbalance in a marketplace where Amazon currently threatens to establish such hegemony that the rest of us could end up feeling as if any effort to influence pricing, royalties, sales, and important issues such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) and copyright is utterly ineffectual.
Scribd will allow authors and publishers to upload their content, establish their own approach to DRM, and keep 80 per cent of the proceeds from content sales. That’s not a bad start, and these claims from the Scribd site go even further:
The site also provides user-friendly uploading tools for Mac as well as PC users.
Naturally, I’ll want to have my cake and eat it too: to upload content to Scribd and to be able to read it on my Kindle. No doubt there will be a number of ways to do this, and we’ll be posting more about them in the future.
Here are the basics of the Kindle DX feature set:
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Carry Your Library: Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents
Beautiful Large Display: 9.7″ diagonal e-ink screen reads like real paper; boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images
Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages
Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go
Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, no annual contracts, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
Books In Under 60 Seconds: You get free wireless delivery of books in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
Long Battery Life: Read for days without recharging
Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable
Big Selection, Low Prices: Over 275,000 books; New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are only $9.99, unless marked otherwise
More Than Books: U.S. and international newspapers including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, magazines including The New Yorker and Time, plus popular blogs, all auto-delivered wirelessly
Here are the basics of the Kindle DX feature set:
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines
Carry Your Library: Holds up to 3,500 books, periodicals, and documents
Beautiful Large Display: 9.7″ diagonal e-ink screen reads like real paper; boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and sharp images
Auto-Rotating Screen: Display auto-rotates from portrait to landscape as you turn the device so you can view full-width maps, graphs, tables, and Web pages
Built-In PDF Reader: Native PDF support allows you to carry and read all of your personal and professional documents on the go
Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle DX, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, no annual contracts, and no hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots
Books In Under 60 Seconds: You get free wireless delivery of books in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
Long Battery Life: Read for days without recharging
Read-to-Me: With the text-to-speech feature, Kindle DX can read newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books out loud to you, unless the book’s rights holder made the feature unavailable
Big Selection, Low Prices: Over 275,000 books; New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases are only $9.99, unless marked otherwise
More Than Books: U.S. and international newspapers including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, magazines including The New Yorker and Time, plus popular blogs, all auto-delivered wirelessly