Ebooks leading to more polarized sales?

kaitie · Apr 15, 2011

jimbro said:
My two cents:

We don't really have virtual bookstores that offer what a physical bookstore offers.

When I am standing in front of a physical wall of books, even tho I see mostly their spines, I can take in a hundred or more at a glance. I can narrow my focus to pick out something that might be worth a closer look, open it up, examine the index or the TOC, maybe read a page or two. Amazon shows less than 20 books at a time on the screen.

So what I want from a website:

1. Show me 200+ book spines on a page.
let me scroll right and left (and/or up/down) to see other bookshelves, or bookstore sections (SF, Romance, Non-Fic, etc..).
2. If I click on one book spine, show me the cover.
3. If I click on the cover, show me the book summary (author, pages, etc..
4. Let me then read a few random pages (already supported).
5. Let me use one-click to put in my cart.

Most of this is already available, but not the ability to stand (or sit) in front of a shelf full of books. This promotes browsing which, for me at least, is how I choose what to buy.

Amazon already does an OK job with reviews, and links to lists (or external blogs) by other readers, but can do better. All they (or a competitor) need do is add an additional "browse" mode.

What I think will help us find the golden needles in the haystack are:
1. Better browsing ability (zoom out to see hundreds of books).
2. A reliable reputation scheme for the lists by other readers. These are the recommendations by readers we can come to trust, and these other readers can help us find those golden needles.
3. And I want to have links to my preferred "other reader's lists" on top.

I actually like this idea a lot. I'm definitely a browser, and I do read spines. I skim through, pick up things with interesting sounding titles. I might see an author I've read before has a new book out that I hadn't heard of. I might notice a book that I've heard of before and then forgotten about.

When I'm randomly picking a book without a recommendation, I pick them up based on title, cover, and then blurb. I don't like to read samples in advance, so that's good enough for me.

ColoradoMom · Apr 15, 2011

rsullivan9597 said:
Speaking for myself - I use two techniques for browsing on-line.

a) I look for top sellers in a genre that I'm intersested in.
b) I look at others also bought recommendtions for a book I just finished and liked.

Ditto - Amazon's people who bought this widget is how I make 90% of my book purchases.

kuwisdelu · Apr 15, 2011

kaitie said:
That's a lot of book sales.

Ehh, don't make the mistake of conflating piracy with lost sales.

Chris_Wilkins · Apr 15, 2011

kuwisdelu said:
I think we'll eventually get to a point where we have websites dedicated to indie authors and the like and maybe even stuff like last.fm for writers. Eventually.

Absolutely.

Chris_Wilkins · Apr 15, 2011

jimbro said:
What I think will help us find the golden needles in the haystack are:
1. Better browsing ability (zoom out to see hundreds of books).
2. A reliable reputation scheme for the lists by other readers. These are the recommendations by readers we can come to trust, and these other readers can help us find those golden needles.
3. And I want to have links to my preferred "other reader's lists" on top.

Here, here. Would such a system be really great? I think it would be. But of course authors and readers would have to get involved in such a system in order to populate it. Do you think authors and readers would be willing to do that?

Perhaps it sounds like an obvious question. I only ask this because after I've read a book I may tell only a couple of close friends about it. I don't leap on the internet to put up a review or rate it.

What do you think?

Chris_Wilkins · Apr 15, 2011

dgaughran said:
Osiander - good points again. However, you said you liked Amazon's recommendations. One of the things that feeds into the algorithm that displays these is tagging. And you know who does the tagging? Enthusiastic readers.

And of course if you have lots and lots of readers making recommendations their voices will tend to make any attempts to skew the results negligible.

kuwisdelu · Apr 15, 2011

Chris_Wilkins said:
Here, here. Would such a system be really great? I think it would be. But of course authors and readers would have to get involved in such a system in order to populate it. Do you think authors and readers would be willing to do that?

Perhaps it sounds like an obvious question. I only ask this because after I've read a book I may tell only a couple of close friends about it. I don't leap on the internet to put up a review or rate it.

What do you think?

People do it for other mediums. I think the real question is why aren't fans already doing this for books? Social networking sites exist for music, movies, TV shows, etc., for example, like Last.fm. Why doesn't this already exist for books? There's no reason it couldn't. Maybe it's just that no one reads anymore.

(And I mean that relative to how pervasive music and movies are in pop culture.)

Chris_Wilkins · Apr 15, 2011

kuwisdelu said:
People do it for other mediums. I think the real question is why aren't fans already doing this for books? Social networking sites exist for music, movies, TV shows, etc., for example, like Last.fm. Why doesn't this already exist for books? There's no reason it couldn't. Maybe it's just that no one reads anymore.

(And I mean that relative to how pervasive music and movies are in pop culture.)

I think the reason is you can't put a book on YouTube.

rsullivan9597 · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
I just wanted to say that the worst part of that survey was the 45% of males under 35 who pirate ebooks. That's my demographic. That's a lot of book sales.

Agree - But let me point out somethings about piracy...And don't get me wrong - I HATE it.

1 - a pirated book is usually not a lost sale as they weren't going to pay $'s in the first place.

2 - someone who pirates and likes could spread by word-of-mouth so think of it as an advertising cost

3 - it's like wack-a-mole - you can spend your whole life asking for sites to remove copyrighted works - I don't even try any longer.

4 - The point in time that Michael started making substative sales is about the time we noticed a lot of piracy - what I don't know is which is the chicken and which is the egg. Did the piracy make him popular or because he was popular he was pirated? No idea but since it is beyond my control I try not to let it get me too wigged out.

kaitie · Apr 16, 2011

I actually know that piracy isn't necessarily related to a lost sale. For instance, I could easily see someone buying a print version, then pirating an ebook version to put on a reader because they've already bought the book once, so why buy it again? I can also see other people pirating books they wouldn't have ever bought in the first place.

However, I also know how many people my age and younger, including basically all of my friends, actively use piracy to avoid paying for something. A new movie comes out and rather than spend even a dollar for a Red Box version, they'll go and download it, generally justifying it with one reason or another. Too poor, may not like it so why spend money on it if I don't, if DVDs didn't cost so much, etc. It's something that's bothered me for years, though, because to me it's something that most people don't equate with theft.

I've seen people go to stores, find things they want, and then go home and download them rather than pay for the legit version. I've seen it so often that I know it happens. At least with something like music or movies, there are other income sources at work. Live concerts, theater sales, DVD sales, etc.

I've also found that I get a very negative reaction if I ever say that I pay for anything. For instance, if I make a comment about "Oh, that looks awesome. I'll go check iTunes when I get home and see if I can find it," the typical response is along the lines of, "Oh, God, you're one of those people. You know you can get it for free, right?" It's an attitude I outright hate, and I hate more than anything that I'm treated like there's something wrong with me because I actually buy digital material instead of pirating it.

Anyway, I know that there are multiple reasons, and I wouldn't condemn every person doing it, but I also know that an awful lot of people out there see absolutely no problem with pirating for the purpose of avoiding paying for something, and if they already do it with music, video games, and movies, what's to stop them from doing it with books as well? And an author only has book sales as a source of income. So yeah, it's a scary thing for me, and my biggest fears for the publishing industry have nothing to do with ebooks taking over or publishers going under--it has to do with the potential for pirated copies to cut into sales seriously enough that an already difficult industry becomes even more difficult.

That's just me, though. I didn't really mean to tangent my own thread, and the piracy thing is a whole separate issue, so we don't really need to go into it here. I'll admit there are many reasons people do it and it doesn't necessarily equate with lost sales, but it's also a fear of mine that they will one day be significant.

Anyway, to be back on topic, is the type of system we're talking about similar to authors who do books as podcasts on iTunes?

I read an interesting article somewhere, Rachelle Gardener maybe, that was saying why the book industry isn't like the music industry. One of the things it pointed out was that performance-based arts, such as music or movies, are more inherently social, whereas reading is much more of a solitary, personal activity. I wonder if the lack of social networking sites for books can be related to this?

rsullivan9597 · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
Anyway, I know that there are multiple reasons, and I wouldn't condemn every person doing it, but I also know that an awful lot of people out there see absolutely no problem with pirating for the purpose of avoiding paying for something, and if they already do it with music, video games, and movies, what's to stop them from doing it with books as well? And an author only has book sales as a source of income. So yeah, it's a scary thing for me, and my biggest fears for the publishing industry have nothing to do with ebooks taking over or publishers going under--it has to do with the potential for pirated copies to cut into sales seriously enough that an already difficult industry becomes even more difficult.

My biggest fear is the $0.99 ebook. I've studied the figures and can't dispute the effectiveness of the strategy. But the reality is that the people it has been successfu for are the ones that use it to hit the top 100. So yeah...if you can hit the top 100 then it's a good move. But there are only 70 fiction spots (other top spots taken by games and periodicals) and of that 70, 2/3 are traditional. So for someone who is self-published or indie published who prices at $0.99 there are only 21 places, and they don't turn over frequently.

You have to sell a lot of books at $0.99 to make a living wage. I personally think $4.95 is a good price for indie and self published people a it is approximately 1/2 of the "big-six" ($9.99 - $14.99). At $3.47 per book you can sell 10x less books and produce the same income.

I'm all about "making a living wage". and if $0.99 becomes the "standard" price for all self-published and epublished authors a potentially lucrative avenue is going to get VERY, VERY challenging.

kaitie said:
I read an interesting article somewhere, Rachelle Gardener maybe, that was saying why the book industry isn't like the music industry. One of the things it pointed out was that performance-based arts, such as music or movies, are more inherently social, whereas reading is much more of a solitary, personal activity. I wonder if the lack of social networking sites for books can be related to this?

I really, really enjoy the sockal network sites for books - especially Goodreads.

The most interesting thing I saw on this topic (music verses books) is that in music consumers were used to getting it free (via radio) and of course books usually are not free (except for promotions)

kaitie · Apr 16, 2011

I'll amend that--99 cent books scare the shit out of me, too.

That's an interesting point about radio. I hadn't thought of that, either. I also wonder if book readers are more loyal in general. It seems that many readers are more passionate than most music or movie fans. Those seem much more casual, don't they?

I'm so not into social media at all (this is it for me), and so I don't really know much about what's out there.

dgaughran · Apr 16, 2011

I'm not crazy about $0.99 cent e-books, but there's not much I can do about it. What I can do is what Robin did and put out a product that is so professional that it looks like it came from New York. Then $4.95 looks like a sale. People like sales.

I used to get worked up about $0.99, and maybe I will again when I release my stuff and it gets spanked in the rankings, but there have always been high-end publishers, regular publishers, and discount publishers, just like there has always been dollar theatres and day-old bread.

It's all about perception. That bread is probably fine, and everyone is saying John Locke is a hell of a writer for 99 cent, but people will pay more if they think it is worth it.

If you have take the time and spend the money, get a professional cover, a professional editor, set yourself up as a company, publish your books under that name, have a website, do your marketing, be professional in everything you do, in other words do everything possible to make your book look just as good as one that came from New York, people will pay $4.95, and do. In huge numbers.

dgaughran · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
That's an interesting point about radio. I hadn't thought of that, either. I also wonder if book readers are more loyal in general. It seems that many readers are more passionate than most music or movie fans. Those seem much more casual, don't they?

I'm so not into social media at all (this is it for me), and so I don't really know much about what's out there.

They are much more passionate aren't they? It's funny, when your favourite band releases a so-so album, you are disappointed, sure, deflated perhaps. But when your favourite writer does it, you are hopping mad!

People have no qualms in telling you exactly what they think about your writing, whereas if you were to walk into their office and say that they can't survey quantities to save their life, they would be very offended.

Social media. Yeah, it's going to be painful for me if I ever have to do the whole twitter thing, it's not my cup of tea.

Having said that, I started a blog last week (which I swore I would never do), but it's like one long, continuous, passionate talk about books and the business with people who care. And I'm having a hell of a time.

Dave

kaitie · Apr 16, 2011

dgaughran said:
If you have take the time and spend the money, get a professional cover, a professional editor, set yourself up as a company, publish your books under that name, have a website, do your marketing, be professional in everything you do, in other words do everything possible to make your book look just as good as one that came from New York, people will pay $4.95, and do. In huge numbers.

Again, though, interestingly, this seems to me to go back to the main point that started this thread. Some people are going to be able to sell, and they will sell huge. I don't doubt that at all. However, what about the rest of us who would have been happy being midlist and supplementing our income with a regular advance check and some royalties?

Sure, I'd love to sell hundreds of thousands of books, even millions. I'd be thrilled beyond reason. However, I also am the kind of person who would be perfectly happy as a midlister.

We've already seen publishers making decisions that lead to more polarity, but it's only getting worse. Sure, some people might sell and sell big and make a fortune, but does that mean the rest of us don't find an audience?

I remember Nathan Bransford once, ages ago, making a statement (no idea where or I'd quote it) that he could envision a future where the majority of books published only sold a handful of copies. He wasn't saying this as a bad thing, more that everyone would have a chance, but I remember seeing that and finding it frightening. For different reasons than he mentioned, we could conceivably reach a point where a few books sell millions, and the rest sell a couple of hundred.

Now, the more interesting question is whether or not this would work to the benefit of the new author, and I think short-term it would. You're already seeing publishers dumping midlist in favor of new authors, hoping to take a chance on someone who might net bigger sales.

I think new writers will still get picked up, but I am more concerned about the second or third or fourth books. If sales become more and more polarized, you're going to see publishers less willing to take on an author for that second book if the first doesn't sell big. There's a potential here for a circumstance in which most writers become essentially a one-hit wonder.

Part of me hopes that I'll be able to break in before these major changes take place, because I think being a successful writer might be harder in the future. Granted, it could swing the other way as well. I think as people start to become aware of problems, they'll hopefully try to make moves to address them. I think the biggest question, in this instance, is more one of whether or not the bookstores will find it more beneficial to sell only a few authors in large numbers, or to sell across a wider range.

kuwisdelu · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
That's an interesting point about radio. I hadn't thought of that, either. I also wonder if book readers are more loyal in general. It seems that many readers are more passionate than most music or movie fans. Those seem much more casual, don't they?

dgaughran said:
They are much more passionate aren't they? It's funny, when your favourite band releases a so-so album, you are disappointed, sure, deflated perhaps. But when your favourite writer does it, you are hopping mad!

I disagree. It's just the average person listens to music and watches movies more than they read.

If you take the real music fans, the kind that travel cross-country to see their concerts, follow the tour with them, buy the special edition limited releases on vinyl, DVD-A, and FLAC, or the real movie fans, with projectors set up in their home theater and a library stretching back to black-and-white and silent flicks and attend film festivals and art house stuff and don't even notice the subtitles anymore....

You will find an incredible amount of passion. I would be just as pissed if my favorite band started going in a different direction, or if my favorite director started sucking, as if my favorite authors did. I know lots of people who would.

dgaughran · Apr 16, 2011

Katie:

There are lots and lots and lots of books being sold at every single price point between $0.99 to $14.99. Just like some people will buy day-old bread and some people will go to the artesanal bakery, there are customers with all sorts of expectations and values and priorities and disposable incomes.

I'd be happy with the mid-list too. I'd be happy with scraping by. But I'm going to aim for the top, why not? I'm going to try and sell as many of my books as I can.

I think the large publishing companies would be happier with a more polarised world sales-wise. Less returns, which is what is killing their business.

My guess is that self-publishing would lend itself to a less polarised world, but that's just a guess, and it's really too early to draw any conclusions.

Maybe the whole self-publishing world will become the new slush-pile, and some kind of re-constituted publishing industry will cherry-pick the top-sellers to spin off print rights and foreign sales. This is happening already to some extent.

But I'm not sure about that. If e-books becomes the dominant format, then its only a slush-pile for subsidiary rights, which is what print will become at some point, if it's not already there.

dgaughran · Apr 16, 2011

kuwisdelu said:
I disagree. It's just the average person listens to music and watches movies more than they read.

If you take the real music fans, the kind that travel cross-country to see their concerts, follow the tour with them, buy the special edition limited releases on vinyl, DVD-A, and FLAC, or the real movie fans, with projectors set up in their home theater and a library stretching back to black-and-white and silent flicks and attend film festivals and art house stuff and don't even notice the subtitles anymore....

You will find an incredible amount of passion. I would be just as pissed if my favorite band started going in a different direction, or if my favorite director started sucking, as if my favorite authors did. I know lots of people who would.

Fair point.

kaitie · Apr 16, 2011

dgaughran said:
Katie:

There are lots and lots and lots of books being sold at every single price point between $0.99 to $14.99. Just like some people will buy day-old bread and some people will go to the artesanal bakery, there are customers with all sorts of expectations and values and priorities and disposable incomes.

I'd be happy with the mid-list too. I'd be happy with scraping by. But I'm going to aim for the top, why not? I'm going to try and sell as many of my books as I can.

I think the large publishing companies would be happier with a more polarised world sales-wise. Less returns, which is what is killing their business.

My guess is that self-publishing would lend itself to a less polarised world, but that's just a guess, and it's really too early to draw any conclusions.

Maybe the whole self-publishing world will become the new slush-pile, and some kind of re-constituted publishing industry will cherry-pick the top-sellers to spin off print rights and foreign sales. This is happening already to some extent.

But I'm not sure about that. If e-books becomes the dominant format, then its only a slush-pile for subsidiary rights, which is what print will become at some point, if it's not already there.

I actually suspect self-publishing will be more polarized. There is a quality issue to contend with there. Those books that are well-written and well produced will sell big, and those that aren't probably won't. I also think that commercial publishers have always tried to jump on things that will make money, but I don't see that necessarily becoming the norm or the average way people break in. I could be wrong, though.

I'm also not sure if it's better for publishers to become more polarized from a business standpoint. One of the big faults of publishers, IMO, is the feeling I get that they often pay bigger advances to entice people and are essentially gambling on that person being a success. If you have bestsellers, then you know those will do well and sell a ton. If you have a new author, you don't really know how that's going to go. Will they break out and be the newest trend, or not? Considering chances are more likely against it, the publisher would essentially be gambling on the hope that a couple of those new authors would perform exceptionally well and the rest would be dropped.

Now, if you have a midlist of good authors that sell fair numbers and can generally be guaranteed to earn out, that seems to me to be a good base. You have a more solid foundation built around authors you know can sell, even if those sales aren't in the millions, and then you can still take chances on a new author, but you aren't betting as much on it. Now, that kind of situation might make it more difficult for a new author to break in, but those who do will have a better chance of long-term success.

That's my observation, anyway, and I don't really have anything to back it up. I'm kind of risk-averse, anyway, so that probably has something to do with it.

Oh, and don't get me wrong. My goals are totally to become a big enough name to make a living at this and sell tons of copies and write whatever I want and get it published. I'm just saying I'd be okay if that doesn't happen as well. I know my chances.

rsullivan9597 · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
Sure, I'd love to sell hundreds of thousands of books, even millions. I'd be thrilled beyond reason. However, I also am the kind of person who would be perfectly happy as a midlister.

I think the road for a "midlister" in big-six is a VERY hard road and not something that I would wish on my worst enemy (no Kaitie - you're not my worst enemy ;-)

I think for someone with these aspirations indie press is the best approach if you don't want (or can't) do the production values. If you can do these things - I think self-publishing is the best route as you'll earn better.

For any of the midlisters (self, indie, big-six) I think having to do promotion will fall equally on all of them - if you don't you'll fail but the price of failure will be different in each one. Failing in big-six means you might not get a number chance to swing at it. Failure in indie - is probably the easiest place to fall in as you won't be out any money. Failure in self will be hard hit as well as you may not earn back what you put in.

thothguard51 · Apr 16, 2011

I think Osiander is referring to online book stores as the next gate keepers and the fact that they will be more selective about what they offer...

If an ebook ain't moving, it gets shoved to the bottom of the listing where no one searches, or very few do.

This is already happening on Amazon, thus creating that gulf Katie refers to between those who sell well at the top and those who sell sparingly buried.

dgaughran · Apr 16, 2011

There has been some, limited data to show this might be occurring, but I have heard several convincing points against it too.

Fact is, nobody knows how it's going to play out, there are too many variables at the moment and we don't have enough hard data.

Anyone working in Amazon who wants to divulge some company secrets?

kaitie · Apr 16, 2011

thothguard51 said:
I think Osiander is referring to online book stores as the next gate keepers and the fact that they will be more selective about what they offer...

If an ebook ain't moving, it gets shoved to the bottom of the listing where no one searches, or very few do.

This is already happening on Amazon, thus creating that gulf Katie refers to between those who sell well at the top and those who sell sparingly buried.

This is actually a really interesting point. Okay, so right now basically Barnes and Noble gets a huge say in what books will become a success, right? If their sellers don't pick up your commercially published book to be stocked in stores, your sales are going to be down. I've even heard cases where the store says "I won't buy that book with that cover" and the publishers go back to the drawing board. In a really big way, the chain bookstores have a say in determining which books will be a success and which won't.

Now, the online retailers currently seem to stock everything. You can find anything in the world you possibly want. That eliminates the potential screwing over you can get from a situation like "B&N didn't stock my books."

However, in a way, the online retailers are creating a similar situation. One also has to wonder if they're going to be forced to create new ways of searching for books as more and more books are added to the roster.

The other day, I was searching through ebooks on price, and I went through 121 pages of free books. Never did get to the end of them to see what the 99 cent books were. There were just so many thousands of them that it was difficult to search on that basis. Even narrowing down genres, I still had thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) to pick from.

How do you help a customer "browse" when there is so much to look through?

kuwisdelu · Apr 16, 2011

kaitie said:
One also has to wonder if they're going to be forced to create new ways of searching for books as more and more books are added to the roster.

Hopefully. It better. In the movie and music realm, there are several dozen ways to discover new material, and incredible competition for who will come up with the best algorithm next. We need that kind of competition in the ebook space, as well.

And hopefully, that will help me find a job when I finish my PhD. But I do hope better options than Amazon exist. I don't much like them.

There has been interesting development in machine learning in algorithms when it comes to finding similarities between texts, but most of this has been in the non-fiction, journal articles, etc., and lots of the assumptions we can use in non-fiction don't apply to fiction. And natural language as opposed to bag-of-words is a whole different beast. I'm thinking in the future, the best algorithms will apply different weights both to measurements of how different people rate things as well as objective measurements of similarities between texts, and tune these weights as they learn the consumers' preferences.

scope · Apr 16, 2011

I find all these threads that deal with traditional publishing, SP, and e-books a bit overwhekming.

As I see it, the basic reason for the latest interest in forms of publishing other than traditonal (SP, and especially e-books) is the horrible economy we've had for 3-4 years. Traditional houses have had to make cuts, put delays on a variety of normal operations, reduce the number of books published each year, take on even less debut writers than usual, and more. Also, although modestly in the e-book market in the past, they seem to be increasing their activity in same because it's so inexpensive for them to do. Maybe it won't yield a lot of profit but it will keep their names in the forefront.

Self-publishing, well, nothing new about that, except that there are many more companies in existence than ever before, each of whom is more than happy to publish one's book, charge for editing and all kinds of other services, and even make limp marketing efforts. Why not, the writer pays upfront for anything they do, but what they do I don't believe amounts to a row of beans. In addition, the writer better know that s/he is in a business, s/he has taken on a job with responsibilities and know-how, and that s/he will ultimately be responsible for anything that does or doesn't happen to the company. And if we forget about the handful of success' which are always thrown about, it's unlikely that a writer will do anything but lose money and time going this route. It's always been a bottomless hole and I see nothing to suggest it will be anything but the same in the future. Of course if a writer's only wish is to have a book in print with their name on it, I guess it's okay. Although I would suggest Kinkos.

E-books. Personally I pay no attention to the numbers being thrown around by just about everyone and that can be found everywhere. They are just numbers and not only don't I know how they are arrived at, I don't know what they don't take into account. Now I'm not saying that there isn't a demand or need for e-books, obviously there is. But is it the wave of the future, will it make damatic inroads into the traditional publishing model, can writers make a living from same, etc., I don't think so, but I don't know. I don't know how many people own, or want to own, an e-reader,-- today I would guess 1 out of every 10 -- but I don't know. And what about the elderly, schools, libraries, and yougsters, how many have e-readers?

So, while I find nothing wrong in discussing anything that has to do with writing and publishing, I find a lot wrong when some people express a viewpoint and insist one way is the only way to go.

Just some idle thoughts.

Ebooks leading to more polarized sales?

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