The End is Nigh: Nook is the first casualty

[Ransonwrites]

Things aren't looking good over a Barnes & Noble's Nook division. According to this article on the Digital Publisher, today...

Over the past few weeks no fewer than 4 members of the senior management at Nook Media, B&N’s ebook sub, have either left the company, been promoted, or announced that they have one foot out the door.

Why do we care?

Well, presumably a few of us are Nook owners, and a few of us who are self-publishers have probably done things like paid CreateSpace $25 for their expanded distribution package, which includes B&N.

Is it serious? Judge for yourself. As Mr Hoffelder remarks,

... no one was promoted or hired to fill the now-empty positions. Instead the job was demoted to whoever was the next in line. Or even worse, they were simply left empty. In either case, that does not bode well for the Nook.

If the Nook's days are numbered this can only represent another loss of competition in an already narrow market. Publishers, and platforms, are either merging or falling by the wayside with far reaching consequences both for readers and authors.

What is the ultimate result of this trend which I have used the Nook's travails as an excuse to discuss?

Readers will have less choice - the book market will increasingly resemble Hollywood, i.e. the lowest common denominator rules: you get what you're given and what you're given is sex, action and a plot you can summarise on a napkin, yet whose plot-holes require a 100 page thesis to convey.

Authors, meanwhile, will get shafted (both traditional and self-published). Witness the last ten years of almost continuous mergers and acquisitions of publishers, which seems to be accelerating, and which rarely result in an increase of available resources for the authors on those publishers' respective lists. Sometimes a cull ensues, with an arbitrary benchmark of n number of book sales per month being defined, and everyone below that number being refused a new contract. Thus, the newly merged entity retains hardly any more authors than any of the component companies did when they were separate. And there's a good reason for this, because the marketing and distribution departments have been culled, as well, so those authors who remain struggle to get the resources and publicity they need to ensure they meet the monthly quota of sales, and thus get another book deal.

How does this hurt self-published authors? Competition. There will be a growing tide of established names with established followings moving onto the indie book market, because if they wish to keep writing and selling they will have little choice. The doors to traditional publishers are shrinking even as the crowds of applicants and re-applicants grow. As a result we unknowns will struggle even harder to become 'knowns' and to find our niche in a bloated market of self-employed authors all clammering on social media for attention.

Am I being gloomy? Do I still have that Monday feeling even though it's Tuesday? I welcome any remarks to the contrary, and any predictions of a glowing future because, right now, I struggle to see it.

 

[DaCosta]

Survival of the fittest, I say. Apparently Nook has been on its way out for a long time.

 

[AMB]

There are those on all sides who think ditching Nook will make B&N financially better off.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

You're preaching to the apostle my son

 

[Ransonwrites]

Excellent!

Just as they say there are only eight basic plots, so it seems there are no more original user names!

 

[Ogma]

How does this hurt self-published authors? Competition. There will be a growing tide of established names with established followings moving onto the indie book market, because if they wish to keep writing and selling they will have little choice. The doors to traditional publishers are shrinking even as the crowds of applicants and re-applicants grow. As a result we unknowns will struggle even harder to become 'knowns' and to find our niche in a bloated market of self-employed authors all clammering on social media for attention.

At the moment, self-published authors are competing with these established authors, and they are competing against the cachet of being traditionally published. Some people will not read self-published works because they class them all as generally poorly edited etc. The more traditional authors choose to self-publish, the more the lines blur between traditional and self-published books, the better for self-publishing in general.

 

[jastius]

the primary focus of the executive level staff was to establish the corporation through takeovers.. they were sharks swimming in the guppie tank.
since they have accomplished their mandate there was no real reason to continue with their corporate position. the idea of ebook is to have a lean mean workforce to cut costs and saturate markets quickly. the other position is to provide out of print books.

so other then the fact that e readers have hit their third market saturation level i really don't see any negative charting trends to this announcement, but business more or less as usual..

and if you all want more money in the e-book market, stop writing books for it for free.. why buy the cow and all that. you are gutting your own market with that practice and being the ebook equivalent of cheap chinese dollar store merchandise. (strictly an economic comparison, not a comment about writingstyle)