Really appreciate this breakdown and your insights. When Scribe existed there was so much talk about book publishing being just one arm of a bigger media company. While obviously the leadership team were totally irresponsible -- that vision made sense to me. Interesting that's your take on this new board that's come together at S&S.
Thank you! I think the new ownership and board put S&S in a unique position as a big five publisher. When you are a biz division of a media conglomerate, and that conglomerate is focused on other units, you'll never be the priority.
Wow! I can’t imagine what you might do if you had the time! I have to confess I’ve never heard of BookTok or Colleen Hoover, but I ate this piece UP. There is so much bad news coming from the publishing world any little bit of sunshine is welcome. A board made up of savvy people who at least have an inkling about the industry—what a concept!
Thanks for responding! Just one point to add: publishers are required to spend money advertising on Amazon, a percentage of the annual business they do there, because of coop policies. And in large part Amazon decides which books it wants the money spent on beyond what they charge simply to include the publisher's books in search at all. Most of their promotions, are not effective-- unlike say paying B&N for table display, which can be. It used to kill me to have to devote an already picayune marketing budget simply on what was, essentially, contractually required tribute. Anyways the advertising is a consequence of coop. You have to spend the money on something, choices are limited, and most have little or no impact on sales. (except sometimes, I heard tell, in the business book category).
You didn't mention Amazon once. Yet they have all the data they need, across a wide swathe of different media, to determine what books their customers buy, how much of them they read and what they might consider buying next. They also have the visual and audible licensing breadth, plus the tech capability to ramp up generative AI to assist authors achieve greater returns. Do you think traditional publishers can compete in that game or does only the revamped S&S have a chance in the long-term?
I assure you I'm thinking, not sniping. Apologies if it seems the latter - late night written. My comment only reflected my experience of customer/supplier data analysis and other thoughts on what you write very cogently about. Your answer to Lisa's longer explanatory question was just what I was looking for. Thank you.
I agree on if the South American river remains quiescent with respect to book selling in the face of external shifts to more intelligent data leverage then lack of profitability could be one reason. But that in itself doesn't bode well for the future of its competitors and suppliers.
Here's also a blow-by-blow work through of how publishers /authors lever all the actual or inferred AMZ algorithms in possible use (not just the A9). This was written in 2021 so recent keywording and categorisation changes will have impacted this. I find Kindlepreneur's tools and K-lytics detailed analyses also help. https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/kdp/amazon-algorithms-for-authors/
LOL. I do not want Johnathan to write your Substack but iI am curious what you think about what he said. Because I think Amazon long ago stopped giving a shit about books or serving readers, really. Not enough money in it relative to, say, electronics or appliances. To my mind ( which is adimittedly pretty ignorant at this point 9+ years out of the) regardless Amazon's technical and technological capacity, and regardless all the data they have, they have gotten worse and worse both in facilitating meaningful discovery and in identifying and promoting books a customer is likely to be interested in. I think they are much more interested in collecting coop money from companies and/or fees from authors they "publish" to promote books, which is a whole lot easier and involves much less R&D. And I'm guessing their search algortihms are skewed in this way as well. So they don't promote backlist, or seek toc ollect pre-orders for forthcoming titles, based on my purchase history, which they are uniquely capable of doing (I recently bought Lucy by the Sea, so I could be getting pitches for Elizabeth Strout's next hardcover as soon as metadata posts, or backlist titles they see i haven't purchased at least from them) and instead pitch whatever someone has paid to promote regardless its quality or my taste. Just a guess! But I sure do get pitched a lot of crapola, and really have to know what book I'm looking for already, to reliably locate it on amazon.
I can lend some insight here. If a book has 50+ customer reviews, it will show up in the algorithm more often. There isn't meaningful discovery on Amazon where books are concerned. Products, yes. I can't tell you how many times I go to buy a tech thing and related items show up & then I end up buying them as well. I have Prime, so I get an email at the beginning of every month with a selection of books where I can select one for my Kindle in their "First Reads" promo--but guess what...they're all published by Amazon. I would be SHOCKED if they did any R&D on any publishing. Books are just so low on the list for them even though 70-80% of book sales come from them. I suppose that's why they don't develop any discover tools. The other thing is---and I know this for a fact--B&N looks at Amazon rankings, so if there is great movement on a title they passed on, they'll order copies for brick and mortar stores. Some publishers spend too much money on Amazon ads and not enough on other effective promo because Amazon is largely where sales occur. While Amazon has data about what customers prefer re: books, it doesn't mean they use said data to sell more books. They use it to market other products to customers. One could say the same about Apple Books. They have SO MUCH customer data, but they do not use it to market books. They use it to show you certain series or movies on their TV interface (which is better than most platforms). I use Kindle Unlimited a lot, and if I had to guess, that is where the best marketing to consumers occurs. If I read a romance book through there, they'll suggest others that are exactly what I'd read. The thing is, most Kindle Unlimited titles are published by Amazon or self-published. Amazon itself is not a discovery platform for books. You aren't going to browse Amazon for a book--you are going there because you know which book you want and they've got the best price, quickest delivery, and you don't need to leave home. Those three elements are why preorders rarely work with non-celeb books. If they wanted to make books a priority, they would.
Thank you for putting this so clearly and comprehensibly! My current contract at Macmillan is just about to be completed and this will definitely come in to play in my future decisions.
Really appreciate this breakdown and your insights. When Scribe existed there was so much talk about book publishing being just one arm of a bigger media company. While obviously the leadership team were totally irresponsible -- that vision made sense to me. Interesting that's your take on this new board that's come together at S&S.
Thank you! I think the new ownership and board put S&S in a unique position as a big five publisher. When you are a biz division of a media conglomerate, and that conglomerate is focused on other units, you'll never be the priority.
Great insights.
I really appreciate this post, thank you for putting all this together and explaining the changes & what they might mean for the publishing industry.
Wow! I can’t imagine what you might do if you had the time! I have to confess I’ve never heard of BookTok or Colleen Hoover, but I ate this piece UP. There is so much bad news coming from the publishing world any little bit of sunshine is welcome. A board made up of savvy people who at least have an inkling about the industry—what a concept!
Thanks for responding! Just one point to add: publishers are required to spend money advertising on Amazon, a percentage of the annual business they do there, because of coop policies. And in large part Amazon decides which books it wants the money spent on beyond what they charge simply to include the publisher's books in search at all. Most of their promotions, are not effective-- unlike say paying B&N for table display, which can be. It used to kill me to have to devote an already picayune marketing budget simply on what was, essentially, contractually required tribute. Anyways the advertising is a consequence of coop. You have to spend the money on something, choices are limited, and most have little or no impact on sales. (except sometimes, I heard tell, in the business book category).
I know S&S is announcing a new imprint soon...
The plot thickens...
Wow, the final line in the WSJ piece. Sums it all up, doesn’t it?
thanks for the kind mention! 🙏🏼
Of course!
You didn't mention Amazon once. Yet they have all the data they need, across a wide swathe of different media, to determine what books their customers buy, how much of them they read and what they might consider buying next. They also have the visual and audible licensing breadth, plus the tech capability to ramp up generative AI to assist authors achieve greater returns. Do you think traditional publishers can compete in that game or does only the revamped S&S have a chance in the long-term?
See my answer below Lisa's q below.
I assure you I'm thinking, not sniping. Apologies if it seems the latter - late night written. My comment only reflected my experience of customer/supplier data analysis and other thoughts on what you write very cogently about. Your answer to Lisa's longer explanatory question was just what I was looking for. Thank you.
I agree on if the South American river remains quiescent with respect to book selling in the face of external shifts to more intelligent data leverage then lack of profitability could be one reason. But that in itself doesn't bode well for the future of its competitors and suppliers.
There's been plenty of talk on Reddit and other places on the mythical 50+ reviews figure (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/selfpublish/comments/13blqsl/does_a_book_get_more_amazon_views_after_50_reviews/ ).
Here's also a blow-by-blow work through of how publishers /authors lever all the actual or inferred AMZ algorithms in possible use (not just the A9). This was written in 2021 so recent keywording and categorisation changes will have impacted this. I find Kindlepreneur's tools and K-lytics detailed analyses also help. https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/kdp/amazon-algorithms-for-authors/
You wanna write the Substack instead of me? Go right ahead.
The perils of talking other people's advice... https://substack.com/@jlward/note/c-44977326?r=wtpo
LOL. I do not want Johnathan to write your Substack but iI am curious what you think about what he said. Because I think Amazon long ago stopped giving a shit about books or serving readers, really. Not enough money in it relative to, say, electronics or appliances. To my mind ( which is adimittedly pretty ignorant at this point 9+ years out of the) regardless Amazon's technical and technological capacity, and regardless all the data they have, they have gotten worse and worse both in facilitating meaningful discovery and in identifying and promoting books a customer is likely to be interested in. I think they are much more interested in collecting coop money from companies and/or fees from authors they "publish" to promote books, which is a whole lot easier and involves much less R&D. And I'm guessing their search algortihms are skewed in this way as well. So they don't promote backlist, or seek toc ollect pre-orders for forthcoming titles, based on my purchase history, which they are uniquely capable of doing (I recently bought Lucy by the Sea, so I could be getting pitches for Elizabeth Strout's next hardcover as soon as metadata posts, or backlist titles they see i haven't purchased at least from them) and instead pitch whatever someone has paid to promote regardless its quality or my taste. Just a guess! But I sure do get pitched a lot of crapola, and really have to know what book I'm looking for already, to reliably locate it on amazon.
I can lend some insight here. If a book has 50+ customer reviews, it will show up in the algorithm more often. There isn't meaningful discovery on Amazon where books are concerned. Products, yes. I can't tell you how many times I go to buy a tech thing and related items show up & then I end up buying them as well. I have Prime, so I get an email at the beginning of every month with a selection of books where I can select one for my Kindle in their "First Reads" promo--but guess what...they're all published by Amazon. I would be SHOCKED if they did any R&D on any publishing. Books are just so low on the list for them even though 70-80% of book sales come from them. I suppose that's why they don't develop any discover tools. The other thing is---and I know this for a fact--B&N looks at Amazon rankings, so if there is great movement on a title they passed on, they'll order copies for brick and mortar stores. Some publishers spend too much money on Amazon ads and not enough on other effective promo because Amazon is largely where sales occur. While Amazon has data about what customers prefer re: books, it doesn't mean they use said data to sell more books. They use it to market other products to customers. One could say the same about Apple Books. They have SO MUCH customer data, but they do not use it to market books. They use it to show you certain series or movies on their TV interface (which is better than most platforms). I use Kindle Unlimited a lot, and if I had to guess, that is where the best marketing to consumers occurs. If I read a romance book through there, they'll suggest others that are exactly what I'd read. The thing is, most Kindle Unlimited titles are published by Amazon or self-published. Amazon itself is not a discovery platform for books. You aren't going to browse Amazon for a book--you are going there because you know which book you want and they've got the best price, quickest delivery, and you don't need to leave home. Those three elements are why preorders rarely work with non-celeb books. If they wanted to make books a priority, they would.
Helpful! I'm very curious to see how this unfolds. Please post again when you find out!
I shall!
Thanks for keeping us in the know!!
Excellent analysis. Thank you!!!
Thank you for putting this so clearly and comprehensibly! My current contract at Macmillan is just about to be completed and this will definitely come in to play in my future decisions.