An abusive, alcoholic father; a snake-oil salesman; a predatory lion; Nazi
Germany: These are some of the metaphors publishers invoke to express their
feelings toward Amazon. In a
massive, 12,000-word feature in this week’s New Yorker, George Packer dives
deep into the relationship between the book industry and the retail giant that
represents both its most important sales channel and its most dangerous
antagonist.
In the spirit of Amazon’s corporate culture — wherein, Packer reports, it was the custom to refer to original writing only as “verbage” — let’s ignore the overheated rhetoric for the moment and focus on the raw data.
$5.25 billion: Amazon’s current annual revenue from book sales, according to one of Packer’s sources. That means books account for 7% of the company’s $75 billion in total yearly revenue.
19.5%: The proportion of all books sold in the U.S. that are Kindle titles. E-books now make up around 30% of all book sales, and Amazon has a 65% share within that category, with Apple AAPL -0.25% and Barnes & Noble NE -0.45% accounting for most of the balance.*
53%: The effective discount Amazon receives from Random
House on its books. Part of that discount comes in the form of “marketing
development funds,” which Amazon requires publishers to pay if they want to
receive promotion on the site. Big publishers typically pay 5% to 7% of the
previous year’s gross sales, while smaller houses have to pay proportionately
more, with the result that they can end up being forced to give their books to
Amazon at a 60%-plus discount.
>50%: The decrease in the number of independent bookstores over the past 20 years. There used to be about 4,000 in the U.S.; now there are fewer than 2,000. Amazon’s arrival on the scene is only part of the story here, of course; the decline of the indies started with the debut of big-box stores like B&N and Borders.
<10 strong="">: The proportion of books now sold through independent bookstores.
14: The number of workers Amazon employs for every $10 million in revenue it generates. For brick-and-mortar retailers, the average is 47 employees per $10 million of revenue.
$47: The amount Amazon Publishing paid “Laverne & Shirley” star Penny Marshall for every print copy it sold of her memoir, “My Mother Was Nuts.” Marshall received an $800,000 advance, but the title only sold 17,000 copies. With competing retailers refusing to sell Amazon Publishing titles, other authors choosing to publish through its imprint, including Tim Ferriss and James Franco, have encountered similar problems.
1 million: The total number of copies — print, e-book and audio — sold by author Helen Bryan, whose two historical novels, “War Brides” and “The Sisterhood,” were put out by Amazon Publishing. Amazon announced this morning that Bryan is its second author, following Oliver Pötzsch, to reach the million-copy mark.
*Corrected.
In the spirit of Amazon’s corporate culture — wherein, Packer reports, it was the custom to refer to original writing only as “verbage” — let’s ignore the overheated rhetoric for the moment and focus on the raw data.
$5.25 billion: Amazon’s current annual revenue from book sales, according to one of Packer’s sources. That means books account for 7% of the company’s $75 billion in total yearly revenue.
19.5%: The proportion of all books sold in the U.S. that are Kindle titles. E-books now make up around 30% of all book sales, and Amazon has a 65% share within that category, with Apple AAPL -0.25% and Barnes & Noble NE -0.45% accounting for most of the balance.*
>50%: The decrease in the number of independent bookstores over the past 20 years. There used to be about 4,000 in the U.S.; now there are fewer than 2,000. Amazon’s arrival on the scene is only part of the story here, of course; the decline of the indies started with the debut of big-box stores like B&N and Borders.
<10 strong="">: The proportion of books now sold through independent bookstores.
14: The number of workers Amazon employs for every $10 million in revenue it generates. For brick-and-mortar retailers, the average is 47 employees per $10 million of revenue.
$47: The amount Amazon Publishing paid “Laverne & Shirley” star Penny Marshall for every print copy it sold of her memoir, “My Mother Was Nuts.” Marshall received an $800,000 advance, but the title only sold 17,000 copies. With competing retailers refusing to sell Amazon Publishing titles, other authors choosing to publish through its imprint, including Tim Ferriss and James Franco, have encountered similar problems.
1 million: The total number of copies — print, e-book and audio — sold by author Helen Bryan, whose two historical novels, “War Brides” and “The Sisterhood,” were put out by Amazon Publishing. Amazon announced this morning that Bryan is its second author, following Oliver Pötzsch, to reach the million-copy mark.
*Corrected.
from: Forbes
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