Have you ever wondered why our audiobooks are not available on Audible, iTunes or Amazon? This week, we explain the different kinds of distribution models and why we are selling our products through our own online store only.
There are two different ways to distribute a product: direct or indirect, each consisting of channels. A direct distribution means that you buy the product from the creator, an indirect distribution means that you buy the product from an intermediary. An example of the first model is buying your vegetables from Martha Kent at the farmer’s market, while buying your bottle of Duff at Kwik-E-Mart would be an illustration of the second model.
Indirect distribution gets complicated very quickly: in the publishing world, an author usually needs to find a literary agent who takes his novel to a publisher, that publisher often outsources the typesetting and printing (or creation of the various ebook formats) to a cheaper country, and then delivers it to customers via bookstores or online merchants such as Amazon. Indirect distribution means the publisher has to have less infrastructure in place and face slightly less risk, but it also means slimmer profit margins because all these intermediary businesses (the ‘channels’) want their slice of the cake. But this carrying of risk isn’t as straightforward as it may seem: in the UK, for many years, customers could purchase 3-for-2 books – unbeknownst to many customers however, the cost for that promotion was carried by the publishers and not by the bookstores: it was an unsustainable business deal.
Direct distribution usually either involves either a level zero channel (in which case there is no intermediary retailer) or a level one channel (in which case a manufacturer sells their product through a retailer to the consumer, such as a supermarket’s own-branded food). Direct distribution comes with higher risks because the creator will have to carry all of them, but also allows higher profit margins and full control over the customer’s experience.
“A distribution without dancing is a distribution not worth having.”
– Mark Chatterley, The One in Charge*
In Ear Entertainment is an example of direct distribution with a level zero channel: you can buy our audiobooks on our website only and not through a third-party retailer. This is by design and in response to the current industry constraints. The Amazon-owned Audible (and thus iTunes, which exclusively uses the Audible catalogue) has very strict rules about who it allows to sell through their store: only US-businesses and individuals are allowed to submit their creations, and In Ear is far too small a publisher to enter into a contract with Audible by skipping ACX. If you distribute audiobooks through Audible, you also automatically support DRM – as files sold are all in the proprietary .AA(X) format – and we really don’t like the thought of that.
We also don’t want to be at the mercy of a global reseller: we love supporting new and upcoming artists as best as we can, and we feel being completely independent is the perfect way to do just that. Direct distribution allows us to sell MP3s at affordable prices, because we don’t have to worry about someone else wanting a cut of profits, and it also allows us to keep our authors happy. We can negotiate with them directly, and don’t have to give a second thought about what rules (for example about duration or content) resellers might impose on us. We are also the one-stop company to talk to if something goes wrong with a purchase (we do our very best to prevent this, but we are not as infallible as our favourite spaceship captain Bill Hubbard**). If the store should ever go offline, we know we can fix that ourselves and won’t have to wait until the reseller gets their act together. If we want to run a promotion, we can do that without worrying about any other businesses.
Thom Yorke caused a stir online this week when he decided to take down his songs from Spotify, calling the service “bad for new music” because it pays a mere 0.4p per play. Thom Yorke, of course, is the frontman of Radiohead, the band that made history when it sold their album In Rainbows directly to fans without going through a label and without a price tag, so his announcement carried some weight. The obvious question he ignored, however, is how much a new band nobody has heard of that sells their album directly to fans (or through a service such as Bandcamp) makes per song. New artists in the music industry are yet to find the solution to their woes, in the audiobook publishing world, we are hard at work to make In Ear that solution for new writers and readers who want great content.
The reseller argument has been made against Amazon time and again, too: it destroys publishers, and most people – though not everyone – seem to agree that this is a bad thing. You could say that we are biased in this regard, but we truly believe that publishers will always be needed. Of course, self-publishing is (and should be) an option, but publishers provide quality control as well as proofreading and copy-editing, and are often able to market a book to a wider range of readers than a single author would be.
What is your preference: do you buy from the publishers directly or do you use a service such as Audible? Join the discussion and leave your thoughts below.
* This may not be an actual quote by Mark Chatterley.
** Yes, we know, ‘infallible’ is slightly far-fetched. But… spoilers!
