Macmillan throws in the towel:
Two years ago Pronoun set out to create a one-of-a-kind publishing tool that truly put authors first. We believed that the power of data could be harnessed for smarter book publishing, leveling the playing field for indie authors.
We are proud of the product we built, but even more so, we’re grateful for the community of authors that made it grow. Your feedback shaped Pronoun’s development, and together we changed the way authors connect with readers.
Unfortunately, Pronoun’s story ends here.
While many challenges in indie publishing remain unsolved, Macmillan is unable to continue Pronoun’s operation in its current form. Every option was considered before making the very difficult decision to end the business.
As of today, it is no longer possible to create a new account or publish a new book. Pronoun will be winding down its distribution, with an anticipated end date of January 15, 2018. Authors will still be able to log into their accounts and manage distributed books until that time.
For the next two months, our goal is to support your publishing needs through the holiday season and enable you to transition your books to other services. For more detail on how this will affect your books and payments, please refer to our FAQ.
Thank you for the time and attention you’ve contributed to this experience. It has been a privilege to publish together, and we look forward to meeting again. #keepwriting
Sincerely,
Macmillan Publishers
We gave Pronoun a shot, and from a user’s point of view, it was actually very good. The interface was solid and very easy to use; you could get a book published on every major ebook platform in less than ten minutes. The problem, and the reason we eventually withdrew most of the books we put on it, was that it simply didn’t perform from a sales perspective.
The only real volume came from Amazon, and being on Pronoun meant not being on Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited. Even accounting for the lower compensation on KU – a complete book read is about one-third the compensation for a Kindle book bought – KU brought in about 10x more revenue per book than all the other platforms.
This does not bode well for the major publishers. KU is cutting deeply into their sales and they can’t do anything about it because they can’t put their books on it. As for us, KU accounts for about 10 percent of our unit “sales”.
It’s too bad, because KU’s too-low KENP page-rates do not bode well for Amazon responsibly managing its monopoly position; I expect that sooner or later, they will squeeze the authors and publishers more tightly than anyone will find comfortable. But people simply don’t want to buy ebooks anywhere else. That’s why we don’t often put them on the Castalia store anymore.