Weekly Write-Up: 26th August 2020
Welcome to the SPF Weekly Write-Up, where each Wednesday we collect together the self-publishing news of the week so you don’t have to.
This week: Amazon Ads reach new territories, publishing leaders complain about Amazon’s monopoly, and UK bookshops brace for a tidal wave of new releases.
Amazon Ads – Now in Canada and Australia
What’s this? Actual self-publishing news? Huzzah!
On Monday, Amazon announced that adverts could be served to its Canadian and Australian markets via the KDP dashboard. This is great news for those wanting to expand their reach to English-speaking audiences around the world. I haven’t checked, but I imagine the options will be limited to Sponsored Product adverts like in every market outside of the US.
Get back on KDP and start advertising!
Publishers vs Amazon
In an amusing but somewhat understandable case of irony, some of traditional publishing’s leaders have penned a letter calling for Amazon’s industry “monopoly” to be broken up. It’s not fair to them, apparently.
The irony being that the old model of (exclusively) traditional publishing wasn’t exactly fair to the thousands of writers who couldn’t get past the gatekeepers – even if their books had an audience (which, given the state of indie publishing now, they evidently did). Now that trad publishers find themselves having to compete (the horror!), they’re not all too happy about it.
You can read more about their letter and demands here.
Drowning in Books
Batten down the hatches – there’s a tidal wave of new books coming (in the UK, at least – though I’m sure the US and other territories will experience a similar effect).
With bookstores now reopening and a whole heap of books delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, a new surge of traditional publishing releases are due to hit the market at any moment. In fact, 600 books are expected to be published on September 3rd alone!
There’s good news across the board – not only are sales in 2020 up from 2019 (which was the best year ever in publishing apparently, even before taking into account self-publishing), but hardback sales have increased 23%. And that’s without bookstores being open for most of the year so far!
You can read more about UK sales (and where those sales may end up taking place) by reading the original article here.
Tom Ashford
Tom Ashford is a professional copywriter, author of numerous dark fantasy and sci-fi novels, and the Head of Content at the Self Publishing Formula Blog. His books include the Blackwater trilogy and the Checking Out series.
He lives in London with his wife, in an apartment that doesn’t allow pets. Find out more about Tom here.
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