[Decon]

Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.

ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022

Have you found this to be so?

 

[Darryl Hughes]

Found this article. One thing to note is that Amazon doesn't give out figures, so it's unlikely to include self-published books. At least that's my understanding.

ebook sales plummet 12.2% in March 2022

Have you found this to be so?

Oh my god yes. And not just sales but KENP reads as well. I was just talking with fellow kboards member JTanner about this exact subject for the last week or so. My sales and KENP have completely flatlined without any rhyme or reason after months of going strong.

Glad I'm not just being paranoid. Whew.

Dee

 

[Lady Runa]

Likewise. We thought it was just us. We also thought it might have had something to do with the war in Ukraine, people getting too depressed to buy books. But our US sales dropped quite dramatically in March, then gradually regained their old momentum through April and May. It didn't affect other countries' stores, only US.

 

[nail file]

It wasn't helped when Amazon and BN removed their buy button on android phones.

Amazon’s made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android

It’s due to an impending Google crackdown on billing.

www.theverge.com

 

[alhawke]

It wasn't helped when Amazon and BN removed their buy button on android phones.

Possibly. Certainly goes with the timing. I honestly didn't think that the loss of the button would make that much of a difference, but there you are. I know some readers that became totally confused and thought Amazon was down.

 

[Emma Sharp]

Likewise. We thought it was just us. We also thought it might have had something to do with the war in Ukraine, people getting too depressed to buy books. But our US sales dropped quite dramatically in March, then gradually regained their old momentum through April and May. It didn't affect other countries' stores, only US.

UK sales didn't seem affected by Ukraine at all, I can't see why the US would be unless the population of the US are of a particularly nervous disposition and very frightened of things going on thousands of miles away!
Looking at KENP reads I do seem to be seeing a downward trend with nearly a 40% fall in February and about 5% month by month fall until now. 90% of my sales/reads are UK.
Has Amazon put the price up or something?

 

[Darryl Hughes]

Here's an article about Amazon eliminating the Google Play buy button and making it harder to buy ebooks that way:

Amazon’s made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android

It’s due to an impending Google crackdown on billing.

www.theverge.com

Could explain a lot about what we're going through.

Dee

 

[FourLeafClever]

Looking at KENP reads I do seem to be seeing a downward trend with nearly a 40% fall in February and about 5% month by month fall until now.

This right here! I've experienced the exact same thing.

 

[jlow99]

You guys are missing the obvious - the financial market is down big time in the last three months. People are feeling the pinch...

 

[AmesburyArcher]

My US sales dropped too, although they seem to be recovering a bit. Page reads are pretty bad, though--I wondered if people weren't signing up to get KU as much or letting their subscriptions lapse due to the massive rises in the cost of living. I know many ditched Netflix.

 

[markpauloleksiw]

Ebooks have climaxed as a thing. 1) Super saturation 2) Too Many freebies 3) People love their paperbacks.

85% of my sales are paperback and keep growing.

Friends of mine who are avid readers, by and large, prefer paperbacks.

 

[telracs]

Ebooks have climaxed as a thing. 1) Super saturation 2) Too Many freebies 3) People love their paperbacks.

85% of my sales are paperback and keep growing.

Friends of mine who are avid readers, by and large, prefer paperbacks.

your one data point does not a trend make.

i truly doubt e-books have "climaxed." authors have been complaining about saturation/free books since e-books were first introduced.

i will admit to buying fewer books, basically because i no longer have a 90 minute commute each way every day.

also, i think a lot of people are feeling financially insecure and are saving rather than spending, even on inexpensive books.

 

[Decon]

I can understand that people are feeling the pinch, but even free ebook promos are waning in my experience, not sure if you have found that?

Yes, we have poor economic circumstances, and when added to the other instances mentioned of buy button removal etc, together with old kindles due to become obsolete for buying ebooks, it doesn't bode well for 2022. Just saying.

Could this be the reason of reported change by Amazon to e-pub?

 

[markpauloleksiw]

The growth rate of ebooks has been slowing over the last few years which suggests the wave has peaked.

Maybe a question is are "Kindles" and "Kobos" the right tools? Maybe there needs be a product enhancement?

Print book sales increased 8.9% in 2021 over 2020. In early 2022, fiction books are up 4.5% (adult and teen and young adult fiction) and the huge dropoff is in nonfiction like 22.5% dropoff.

I wish I had the break out for specific genres but, it would be fascinating.

 

[AmesburyArcher]

I have noticed my paperback sales have increases so many people are, to a certain extent, returning to more traditional reads. For myself, still buying lots of both!

 

[V.R. Tapscott]

Yeah, I'm down just about 50% in the past two or three months, and can't seem to find any correlation in ads or anything else. It just ... dropped.

It's good to (well, not it's not, but still) see that others are feeling the same pinch, not to be negative but to realize that as many of you have, it ain't necessarily you.

VR

 

[V.R. Tapscott]

Any chance we're being left behind in the TikTok revolution? Or am I the only one that's not jumped in yet?

 

[Darryl Hughes]

Any chance we're being left behind in the TikTok revolution? Or am I the only one that's not jumped in yet?

You're not. Not a TikTokker.

Dee

 

[jb1111]

The economy is down. Inflation is up. When people are paying roughly twice as much for gas as they were a year ago, and food inflation is 15% up or more from 2021 for many important items, they're not going to be spending as much on entertainment. When large, discount box stores have experienced revenue downturns, you know that there is an issue with the economy somewhere.

And I would hazard a guess that the issues brought up by others here -- about the 'buy' buttons being removed or otherwise not working on Android devices -- may also come into play.

Target plans discounts, inventory switch to match spending shifts as inflation soars

Consumer spending is quickly shifting, prompting swift action by retailers like Target to switch up its inventory and take cost-cutting measures.

www.usatoday.com

 

[Laura_Meyer]

Yep, same goes for the German KENP.

Already talked about the problem in this thread – my two fantasy novels have performed fine since 2020 and flatlined at the end of april 2022. I've always had 10-15k read pages per month as an average to go with, and suddenly the read pages just disappeared. I have never been big on sales, but KENP ensured that ~30 books were read every month, my books have a 4-5 star rating, so it seemed weird to me, that from one day to another nobody wants to read them anymore.

The screenshot is not showing all of may, but nothing changed. May plummet down to 1,5k read pages (in comparison, march had been the last good month with 13,5k).

I've contacted KDP support and asked, if there is something up with the backend, because I was curious. Of course they said, they can't find any weirdness going on.

Sure, we're not in a good place right now with high inflation rates, wars and climate crisis, but from my own reading experience I'd say these are times when people are looking for ways to escape reality and usually (e)books are an affordable way to do so. I agree that many people cut their expenses, but I definitely think it's weird that we're all experiencing this apocalypse in KENP and sales.

I've suspected that there has been a major change in algorithm, maybe that the release date of your books is of more importance, so you have to keep publishing as much as you can? Idk, just thinking out loud. Would be silly though, because if a book is popular, it's popular for a reason, right. People are still reading LotR, so...