Ken Auletta in last week’s New Yorker covers the growing dilemma publishers have in migrating their business models toward the inevitable (eBooks) and away from the past (print books). It outlines how the iPad helped publisher put greater demands on Amazon. It also details (in words) some interesting data about the publishing industry. Being interested in this world from both an eBook entrepreneur and a consumer, I thought I’d throw together some pie charts to help tell the story visually.
When a book sells, how much is left over for the publisher?
Of the print book's retail sale price, who gets what?
Of the eBook's sale price, who gets what?
What percentage of print books get returned to the publisher?
How large are the print and eBooks markets, comparitively?
Sad, but true.
Of eBooks sold, how many we purchased from Amazon?
If we include the iPhone as an eReader, who's got the most popular device?
Who's got the most popular device?
What percentage of all book sales go to the largest six publishers?
The big six publishers are:
- Random House
- Macmillan
- Simon & Schuster
- HarperCollins
- Penguin
- Hachette
Random House is the only publisher on this list to not have signed the 1-year agreement to sell books on Apple’s iBooks store.