Tolino Media Extends 70% Author Royalties Indefinitely, Competing with Kindle Direct Publishing

In January 2015, Pubbles merged under the new brand Tolino Media. By March 2015, it became clear why this step was taken: they wanted to better signal the proximity of the eBook supplier and the Tolino alliance to international partners and customers, and also to establish their own self-publishing offer as competition to the highly successful Kindle Direct Publishing. At the end of April, after several weeks of preparation, Tolino Media finally launched.

At the introduction of the indie platform, the terms were communicated as being temporarily limited. Independent authors publishing through Tolino Media receive 70 percent of the net sales price—regardless of the eBook price. At Amazon, the rate depends on the title price. In euros, this corresponds to the following breakdown:

• 99 cents sales price, with 58 cents author royalty
• 1.49 euros sales price, with 88 cents author royalty
• 2.49 euros sales price, with 1.46 euros author royalty
• etc.

In their newsletter, Tolino Media announced today that the introductory terms will remain in effect through 2016. Previously, they were limited until January 31, 2016, but effective immediately, they are valid indefinitely. However, they explicitly reserve the right to adjust the terms “according to the general conditions with appropriate advance notice for the authors,” as stated on their website.

Whether this will eventually happen is uncertain at this point. However, it is assumed that they will only change the conditions if they further close the gap with Kindle Direct Publishing.

Local Bookstores as a Bonus for Successful Titles

The Tolino self-publishing platform is as exciting a project as the rest of the German chain stores’ collaboration. This is partly because they cannot really leverage their home advantage with local bookstores against Amazon, at least not at first glance.

Nevertheless, things seemed to have started well, as by early July, a Tolino Media title appeared in the eBook.de charts: “Erbsünde” (2015) by Nika Lubitsch reached first place among the best-selling eBooks at the former Libri subsidiary (now owned by Hugendubel) for 3.99 euros.

This early success demonstrated the potential of the offering, as authors are represented in multiple online shops of German chain retailers, not just with one bookseller. Demand was correspondingly high, as it was also announced in July that within nine weeks, over 400 authors uploaded more than 1,000 titles. As of December 23, 2015, around 2,700 titles are distributed via Tolino Media. In comparison, Amazon continues to offer significantly more with over 60,000 German-language KDP titles.

Just like with the local sale of eBook readers, the Tolino partners are trying to make the platform more attractive to authors by emphasizing the home advantage. From the outset, it was pointed out that successful titles could find their way into local bookstores in printed editions.

For many months it was relatively quiet, but in October, 10 selected eBooks were finally introduced, which, after editing and redesigned covers, made it into bookstores from November 15. The following titles are sold under a “special presentation” with the label “Tolino Books” at Thalia, Hugendubel, Weltbild, and Osiander:

• Cold Twin by Catherine Shepherd
• First Man by Nika Lubitsch
• Deadly Harvest by Elke Bergsma
• Sylter Clouds by Sarah Mundt
• Hot Dogs for Breakfast by Elke Becker
• Snow Angel by Izabelle Jardin
• I’m dreaming of you by Claire O’Donoghue
• Flame Heart by Petra Röder
• Storm Catcher by Jasmin Romana Welsch
• The Return of the Sandman by Markus Ridder

Tolino Media intends to further encourage this initiative in the future and make the process routine in order to regularly bring the best titles to the physical market: “We are convinced that printed self-publisher books can succeed in the bookstores—it just requires the right organization. Therefore, we are conducting this pilot project and would like to continue it with a publisher in the future.”

Time will tell whether this will work in the planned routine operation and if a publisher can be found to market Tolino Books in the future.

Elsewhere, Bastei Lübbe was recently criticized for their boldness in publishing the winner of the Kindle Storyteller competition “Paradox – At the Edge of Eternity” including the competition logo (featuring the Kindle script). Whether the Tolino Books published by a publisher will be met with similar criticism remains to be seen (probably not…).