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Feb 19
Love4

Google Play Books: So much promise, so few results

By Blog, Industry

I’ve lamented the state of competition in the ebook platform wars in the past.

Take Apple, which had so much going for it 3 or 4 years ago compared to Amazon, with a vastly superior e-reader (the iPad using iBooks) and sales that regularly topped $200 per month for my In 30 Minutes series of how-to guides. Apple’s hardware/software advantage did not last. Amazon eventually closed the hardware gap with the Kindle Fire, and continued to make improvements to the Kindle software and ordering processes. Meanwhile, Apple’s bloated iTunes/iBookstore has continued to frustrate users attempting to buy or review books, contributing to a stagnant sales picture. So where did Apple place its platform improvement efforts while Amazon was catching up, you ask? Creating a superb closed-garden authoring tool (see my iBooks Author review here) which has done little for sales in the iBookstore and makes it impossible to export the efforts to any other channel.

Then there is Google Play Books and the partner center for authors and publishers. Google is the only other deep-pocketed company out there that could ever hope to compete with Amazon in the ebook space, but it too has dropped the ball with its marketplace. I have been selling ebooks there for 3 years, and sales have never been good. But there are a host of other problems that stymie content producers and make it difficult to consider it a serious contender to Amazon KDP.

Google Play Books review: What’s wrong with Google Play Books

Where to begin? How about the unilateral discounts that Google Play applies to pricing. It’s gotten so bad that when I create a new ebook listing in Google Play, I have to refer to this Kboards forum post that lists the amounts you need to input to Google Play books in order to display the desired price:

Set Price = Discounted Price
99c = no change (royalty = 52%)
1.49 = no change (royalty = 52%)
2.49 = 1.92 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 67%)
2.99 = 2.09 (Discount = 30%. Actual royalty = 74%)
3.49 = 2.65 (Discount = 24%. Actual royalty = 68%)
3.94 = 2.99 (Discount = 24%. Actual royalty = 68%)
3.99 = 3.03 (Discount = 24%. Actual royalty = 68%)
4.50 = 3.44 (Discount = 23.5%. Actual royalty = 68%)
4.99 = 3.82 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 68%)
5.18 = 3.99 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 68%)
5.25 = 4.04 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 68%)
5.99 = 4.61 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 67.5%)
6.48 = 4.99 (Discount = 23%. Actual royalty = 68%)
9.99 = 7.99 (Discount = 20%. Actual royalty = 65%)
8.99 = 7.52 (Discount = 16%. Actual royalty = 62%)
15.99 = 9.99 (Discount = 37%. Actual royalty = 83%)

Then there’s the lack of a sales dashboard on Google Play Books. Even Nook and Kobo understand that authors and publishers want quick insights into how their books are selling, and provide an on-screen look at monthly sales:

Nook Sales sample vs Google Play books

Google Play Books Partner Center, on the other hand, doesn’t have any sales dashboard. It’s only possible to download a .CSV file that contains raw sales data. If you’re handy with Excel or Google Sheets, you can probably set up something that handles basic currency conversion and get a USD total for monthly sales, but if not, you’re out of luck.

Google Play Book reviews include scraped and fake reviews

And then there are the reviews that appear next to my books in the Play Store, written by people who have never downloaded or read them. To be fair, this is a problem with Amazon too, but at least Amazon displays “Verified Purchase” next to the reviews so shoppers know which ones are more trustworthy. Potential customers who venture to Google Play to check out my ebooks are likely to encounter drive-by complaints about the topics covered (“you can get this information on YouTube for free!”) or issues that have nothing to do with my books (such as the person who had a problem recovering a password from some online service). Because Google can’t screen or properly identify real reviews, I’ve taken the step of removing links from my websites to the Google Play Books product pages for half of the titles published. The Google Play product pages have become a liability, and I don’t want to send customers there.

Buy hey, I suppose I should be happy that I at least have access as a publisher, and basic support questions get answered. Nine months ago, Google Play Books closed its doors to new self-published authors and small publishers:

Over the course of the last four weeks there has been a media firestorm about the sheer scope of pirated content on Google Play. This has forced the company to close their Play Books Publisher Portal. In a message in the Google Product Forums, a Google rep said “We’ve temporarily closed new publisher sign ups in the Play Books Partner Center, so we can improve our content management capabilities and our user experience. We’re working to reopen this to new publishers soon. Thanks for your patience.”

As far as I know, Google Play Books is still closed to new authors.

Do you use Google Play Books as an author, publisher, or reader? What has your experience been like? What needs to change?

Jan 22
Love4

Kindle Textbook Creator vs. iBooks Author: No contest (yet)

By Blog

I have been dreaming of the day when someone releases a tool that makes it easy to create ebooks that contain video, snazzy layouts, and other interactive features that make for a rich reading and learning experience on a tablet. In my iBooks Author review, I was impressed with the creative possibilities and the ability to include video and high-quality photo layouts. However, I was disappointed with the lack of support for other platforms — there was no way to export a version of the book for the Kindle, the Nook, or Android tablets. So when the book industry press started making Kindle Textbook Creator vs. iBooks Author comparisons, I was very interested in seeing if Amazon’s new tool could fit my needs. I was disappointed in the results, as you will see from my review of Kindle Textbook Creator below.

The first sign of trouble was the landing page for Kindle Textbook Creator. There weren’t any exciting screenshots. Instead, the focus of the beta tool seems to be around converting PDFs to ebooks:

Kindle Textbook Creator is a free tool for authors and educators that makes it fast and easy to convert PDFs of textbooks, course notes, study guides and other educational material into Kindle books. In a few simple steps, you can import your PDF content into Kindle Textbook Creator and then use the built in previewer to see how your book appears on a range of Kindle devices and free Kindle reading apps.

I downloaded the tool and gave it a spin, using the latest editions of Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes and Excel Basics In 30 Minutes. These two titles have new, high-quality interior design, and the tool’s preview function showed that the layout was preserved in the ebook. The output file is .kpf, which (unlike .epub and .mobi files) I could not preview on any of the devices I own. It also doesn’t work on the Kindle Previewer app, either. To really test the results, I would have to upload the package to Kindle Direct Publishing, a step I am unwilling to take considering I already have ebook versions of Google Drive & Docs In 30 Minutes and Excel Basics In 30 Minutes in KDP.

Kindle Textbook Creator review

There were other missing features in Kindle Textbook Creator. There’s no way to edit text, replace photos or other images, or edit links. The rich media features of iBooks Author — the ability to insert videos, HTML widgets, photo slideshows, etc. — were completely missing. A Kindle Textbook Creator vs. iBooks Author Creator comparison is simply no contest. It’s not even like comparing apples and oranges, it’s more like melons and plantains (or something like that).

So, at the end of the day, it appears that the beta version of Kindle Textbook Creator is little more than a PDF to ebook conversion tool. Amazon hints in a product FAQ that more is in the works, however:

We decided to launch a Beta of the Kindle Textbook Creator so that we can get more feedback from authors and educators to make improvements before our full launch. Our full launch will include a number of additional features, including support for audio, video, and other interactive features.

But, as is always the case when big companies make vague promises, it’s not clear how well Amazon will deliver on these promises, or when it will happen.

If you’re an author or publisher, what features do you want to see in Amazon’s new book creator tools? Leave comments below.

Apr 03
Love0

Is KDP Select worth it?

By Blog

KDP Select

(UPDATED) KDP Select is a promotional tool within Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program. It’s optional, but for those who do opt-in to KDP Select, it offers several benefits to self-published authors.

The biggest: the ability to create “free” promotions for self-published books (in my experience, 5 “free” days per quarter), which leads to higher ranking within Amazon’s categories, which in turn results in more prominence across Amazon.com and (theoretically) more sales. There are some other benefits, including higher royalty rates in secondary markets, small payments for “borrows” on the Kindle, and the Amazon Countdown program.

But there’s a catch: KDP Select requires participating authors to promise not to distribute their work on other platforms, such as Apple’s iBookstore or Google Play.

While many authors will say, “So what? I hardly sell any ebooks for the iBookstore/Nook/Google Play/etc.,” giving in to KDP Select supports Amazon’s monopolistic ambitions by removing content from competing platforms. In this post, I’ll talk about KDP Select and why I believe it is ultimately bad for authors.

If you sign up for KDP to self-publish your books, it’s easy to be tricked into signing up for KDP Select, owing to prominent, cleverly worded sign-up forms that litter the KDP interface. But remember that it’s optional. If you join KDP, you don’t need to sign up for KDP Select. Indeed, I urge you not to sign up, for the following reasons:

  1. Sales from KDP Select promotions may be limited. While some authors have great results from KDP Select, others don’t see much in terms of increased sales or rankings. I experimented quite a bit with Select in 2013 and experienced paltry sales and reimbursements. The rankings boost was negligible. I stopped using KDP Select in mid–2013, and haven’t looked back (sales have actually been stronger than ever across multiple platforms in the past few months).
  2. KDP Select reduces the number of readers you can reach with your books. I want to make my titles available to as wide an audience as possible, and KDP Select runs counter to that. It actually aims to establish a monopoly over reader eyeballs and self-publishing authors. It’s not only a poor way to treat readers who want to buy from other platforms and use other devices, but also limits our options down the road when competing platforms wither and fail.

On this last point, ask yourself what incentives there are for Amazon to improve the KDP UI, payouts, and policies for self-published authors if there is no credible competition. Nook is already failing (YOY sales are down 50% for me), Apple is so slow to implement change, and Google has only recently begun to improve Google Play for books.

Locking content out of these platforms via KDP Select or any other similar scheme will hasten their decline or stifle their growth, and ultimately hurt us in the long run. Competition leads to better interfaces for readers and authors, higher revenue-shares, and policies that deliver value for readers and writers alike. If Amazon is the only player in town, they don’t need to pay attention to anyone’s needs, and indeed can exploit the situation for the benefit of their owners and shareholders (which we’ve seen in the publishing industry in the past; see Bowker’s 12,500% ISBN markup for new authors.)

Bottom line: KDP Select is great for Amazon’s long-term strategic goals of dominating the publishing industry. It may even help some authors juice sales of certain titles. But ultimately it will erode the viability of other platforms, which is not good for us or readers.

UPDATE: In July 2014, Amazon launched its Kindle Unlimited subscription program. Most KDP Select titles were apparently automatically enrolled. I have evaluated the subscription program’s payouts for self-published authors, and have concluded that it treats self-published authors unfairly and is likely to cannibalize full-priced digital downloads. See Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription plan screws self-published authors for details.

Oct 09
Love0

App Annie ebook tracking tool launches

By Blog, Industry

Gather around, people. I’ve got some news to share: The App Annie ebook stats tool has launched. This is a huge development for authors and publishers who use sales and ranking metrics. PaidContent has the story:

App Annie plans to announce Tuesday that it’s expanding into ebook analytics. It will provide publishers with two free products: An Analytics tool that lets publishers track sales and download data from the Kindle Store and the iBookstore into one dashboard, and a “Store Stats” tool that lets them view ebook market trends across a database of about a million titles.

The link to sign up is on the App Annie blog.

I’ve used App Annie in the past to track sales and ranking of an app that my old company developed, and it was a huge time-saver. It also let me compare the app against other apps, which was a big deal, as we were going head to head with other app developers.

So I was very happy to see App Annie has expanded to ebooks. Until today, I have tracked ranking and sales manually through two giant spreadsheets (one for sales, one for KDP and Createspace rankings), so a free tool that aggregates data and lets me easily check the ranking of competitors is huge. While not every author cares about competing titles, it’s a big deal for any publisher of guidebooks or reference titles.

The signup is easy and you can get insights into your books right away. I signed up about an hour ago, and within 5 minutes was able to search for my titles and get downloads (by country), revenue, and other data points:

App Annie ebooks tracking tool

Sales data is private to you, and anyone else you share the reports with. Ranking is public information, so besides your own ranking you can check on the competition, and see trends over time (for instance, related to new releases or price changes).

I have to add that the iTunes tracking is WAY superior to Apple’s own tracking tools on iTunes Connect.

The cons?

  • It’s only KDP and iTunes. No Kobo, B&N, LSI, etc.
  • Rankings only show up if you reach the top 100 in a category.
  • Paranoid authors and publishers may not want to let a tool like App Annie have access to the data. They claim the data is encrypted and they will “never, ever” share data, but as we all know from news related to credit card companies, banks, phone companies, and the NSA, security can be breached.

These concerns aside, I think App Annie is a great tool. If you are an author or publisher, it’s well worth trying out, if only to get your head around iTunes sales.