Waterstone’s the UK biggest bookshop chain are closing their ebook store. This follows on from the news last October when they announced they would no longer stock the Amazon Kindle. Such announcements only serve to widen the gulf between published authors who sell mainly paperbacks, and independent authors who sell mainly ebooks. This in a month when the latest Author Earnings Report showed that since January 2015, the independent authors’ share of ebooks earnings has overtaken that of the Big Five publishers, and has continued to grow while the ebook earnings of authors at the Big Five publishers has continued to decline. This may encourage some publishers to exit from the ebook market which would be a travesty for consumer choice. We shall have to wait and see how this issue pans out.
If you have purchased any ebooks from Waterstone’s, they are being transferred to the Kobo platform. You should have a received an email to inform you of this, but if not, drop me a line and I’ll forward it to you.
No comments yet.