Hugh Howey and The Data Guy have now done all their usual number crunching and published the latest report. What trends can we identify in 2017, based on their impressive (as always) work?
1. For traditionally published books, print is king.
2. However, this reign is highly genre-dependent. In adult fiction, for example, nearly half sales are digital.
3. Two years of Amazon discounts have let the publishing industry grow by 3,3%. But Amazon discounts have now ended. Expect a drop in 2017 in traditionally-published print titles.
4. This is actually good news for Indies, who usually focus on adult fiction and ebook sales.
5. Regardless, print vs digital is the wrong question. The right one is, online vs. brick & mortar. In other words, Amazon vs. everyone else.
6. Indie publishing is now a $1.25 bn industry.
7. Pricing matters: for Indies, the sweet spots are $0.99, $2.99, and $3.99.
8. Kindle Unlimited is becoming a big player, with 14% of all 2016 ebook sales. Expect it to become even bigger in 2017, thus offering even more incentives to authors to go KDP Select.
9. If one includes both traditionally-published and Indie titles, online is trumping brick & mortar. Expect this trend to continue in 2017.
10. Indie-published romance is huge, already capturing the majority of sales.
11. Sci-fi is getting there. However, if one examines the YA sci-fi subgenre on its own, Indies are already the majority.
12. As for African-American fiction, it’s composed almost entirely by Indies.
These, then, are the hottest genres for Indies.
You can read the whole report on the Author Earnings website.
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Thanks for these figures, Nicholas! It’s really amazing!
Heart-warming stuff 🙂
Thank you, Nicholas!
Useful info, well presented. Thanks Nicholas.
Many thanks, Steve! BTW, I just finished “Die, Blossom, Bloom.” Gripping stuff, and some wonderful descriptions. I’ll review on Zon 🙂
Thanks Nicholas! That means a lot!
I always wonder about the science fiction/fantasy thing. Which one is the hotter of the two? To me it seems indie sci-fi does better than indie fantasy. At least it’s more abundant. Why can’t we just divide the two genres? It’s like putting Star Wars and Star Trek sales together without making that final cut. Sure, it’s a big number, but the audience doesn’t completely cross over.
Good point. I haven’t actually checked, but maybe they address that in the full report.
Be nice if they did. I’ve never seen it before. This is why I have people asking about the science aspect of my books. They see the joint category and hedge toward sci-fi.
Bedlam can be defined as sci-fi. Of the dystopian/apocalyptic/action kind.
True. Though nobody is paying attention (or money) to that. ?
You never know. Trends are fickle things 🙂
Can they be fickle in my favor? Pleeeeease.
Great news! Once again, thanks for the great share and keeping us up to speed. 🙂
And thank *you* for reading 🙂
Pleasure. 🙂
I love these guys! 😀 … and they’re slowly, slowly getting the recognition (beyond us indies who’ve loved them from the start) they deserve. 😀
Finally! <3
Wow, this is really fascinating. I will share with my authors group! Thanks, Nicholas!
Yay! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I love that all this data is published now, but part of me wishes for just the cold hard numbers. I know from analysing stuff myself that often the numbers are used to fit the theory, and I wonder what other patterns (e.g. not relating to sci-fi) might emerge from other people. But that’s just me bellyaching.
Lol – lies, bloody lies and statistics 😀
Great info and a beautiful presentation. Good news for the indies 🙂
Indeed, these are exciting times 🙂
I must confess that I find these charts very encouraging. I hope that the sales of printed books continue to flourish, in whatever genre. It will be a sad day indeed, when they are no more.
Best wishes, Pete.
Couldn’t agree more, as you can tell from my bursting libraries 🙂
This is very enlightening. Thank you for sharing.
A pleasure 🙂