Ebooks leading to more polarized sales?

kaitie

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Sorry if this is already mentioned somewhere, but I didn't see it in my little check. Also not sure if this is the best place for it, so please feel free to move if not.

I read this article yesterday, linked from Nathan Bransford's blog, and I've got to say I find it a little terrifying.

On one hand it goes against common sense, but the explanation makes sense. Essentially, a bookstore provides a large number of books right at your fingertips in a second, and it's easier to browse things you didn't plan to buy and pick up any random midlister or small-press author as a result. Not so much when it comes to buying online.

It's a little frightening because essentially it means that the gap that already exists between those who sell well and those who sell poorly is increasing, and if people are right about bookstores going the wayside and ebooks taking over the world, this is only going to get worse. We could conceivably be in a situation where there really isn't a midlist anymore. You either sell huge, or you sell a handful. I'm hoping it doesn't get to that point and that marketers find a way around this, but it seems like it's going to be a challenge.

Any thoughts? What options do you think ebook stores have to present more books at once? Particularly books that aren't already bestsellers?
 

kuwisdelu

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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.

The major hurdle with discoverability, I think, is that it only takes a few minutes to listen to a few songs and "discover" a new artist. It takes a much bigger time commitment to discover a new author who isn't already marketed in some way in some mainstream channel.
 

shadowwalker

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I wonder how one 'browses' an online store, frankly. Maybe it's my short attention span, but I click on Amazon's various fiction sections and my eyes start crossing almost immediately. And yes, they have sample pages - but that's not like picking up a book and fanning through a few pages to see if there's anything that looks really interesting (choosing my *own* sample, in other words).

I buy books online - but only when I know the exact title and/or author I'm looking for. My "Oh now that looks interesting!" purchases (the majority of the books I buy) come from walking through the aisles.
 

kaitie

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I also wonder how Amazon chooses to feature books when you are browsing. I'm going to assume that they feature their most popular books most often. I've often clicked links for "customers also bought" or "similar titles" and things like that, but by default those are also going to be bigger sellers, right? And if you click bestsellers or new or whatever, it seems like the biggest titles are always near the top of the searches.

And I'm like you, I rarely browse an online bookstore. Only when I'm buying gifts for others, and then I'll search through trying to find something I think they'd like. And even then that was only because I lived in a foreign country where I couldn't go to a bookstore and do it. I'm much more likely to have a specific title in mind and go to Amazon than I am to just go look around.
 

AmericaMadeMe

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E-publishing is a tremendous boon to smaller, more marginal genres. On the other hand, for the readership of mainstream best sellers, the e-reader phenomenon is mostly likely reinforcing herd mentality buying trends. Yes, there are early adopters among the throngs of e-reader buyers, but it seems to be a far older, less tech savvy market than most people realize.
 

ios

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On one hand it goes against common sense, but the explanation makes sense. Essentially, a bookstore provides a large number of books right at your fingertips in a second, and it's easier to browse things you didn't plan to buy and pick up any random midlister or small-press author as a result. Not so much when it comes to buying online.

This survey (which I found linked from here) might be of interest because it relates to your concern in some ways. Also, I read before (from more than one source, and I think Donald Maass was one) that most readers don't browse, period: that most readers go into a store to buy a specific book or buy something from a specific author or maybe to get a recommendation for something similar to book/author. If ebooks and online stores become the prevalent way to buy books, this tendency will get worse, sure, but it--i.e., the prevalence of non-browsing--is already here anyway.

Some key slides from that survey mentioned above: Slide 16, in which online retailers account for approximately 21% of the places where readers shop. Slide 31, the reasons that make people buy? Highest ranking ones are author reputation and recommendations. I assume "browsing" would fit in the cover art/blurb area, which is the second lowest (but surprisingly it's only about half less important compared to each of the two highest reasons). Slide 36, in 6-12 months from when the survey was taken, most people indicate they are not likely buy an e-reader, and Slide 37 indicates that out of those planning on buying ebooks in the next 12 months, most plan on buying 10 or more (but this percentage is not a landslide). Slide 42, discounting the "not sures," most people want to pay less than $10 for an ebook.

Very interesting survey.

Jodi
 

shadowwalker

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http://www.versoadvertising.com/beasurvey/ I read before (from more than one source, and I think Donald Maass was one) that most readers don't browse, period

OMG - who are all these people spending hours wandering through the bookstores then? ;) I've never met a reader yet who couldn't lose themselves in a bookstore - not without Herculean self-discipline.
 

kaitie

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I'm pretty sure I've heard similar things before, but it does seem that whenever I go to a bookstore there are a bunch of people just wandering the shelves. I know I can't walk into a bookstore without buying at least one book lol. If I go in to buy something specific, it's usually more than one. I have a huge stack on my shelf right now just waiting to be read, actually.

But I have heard similar statements, so it's possible that it's true as well. I mean, maybe a lot of people do just go in and buy one book and leave again. Though, I have to wonder if that would account for more sales than the browsers who buy three or four at a time. Hm...interesting point no matter which the answer is.
 

Saul Tanpepper

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Brick and mortars booksellers will, I think (though i hope I'm wrong), become the equivalent of the corner craft shop, with paper books being a tangible, but archaic, product of the writer's craft.

But hopefully that won't happen in my lifetime.
 

Roger J Carlson

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Most of the books I've bought over the last couple of years* have been directly from the publisher for my Kindle. Baen Books has a free library where I have sampled authors, many of whom I have never heard. In many cases, I have gone on to buy kindle versions of later works by those authors.

If I can get a free copy of a first book in a series, I'm much more likely to try it.

I would love to see other publishers do this.

*The exception has been books by AW members and books I have given as gifts. In both cases, I ordered them from Amazon, but I knew exactly what I wanted. I've never bought a book based on Amazon's recommendation.
 
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ios

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OMG - who are all these people spending hours wandering through the bookstores then? ;) I've never met a reader yet who couldn't lose themselves in a bookstore - not without Herculean self-discipline.

Maybe there are different levels of browsing? Browsing because you know you need a book on this subject? Then there are people who seek something to just read--but I think there are differences there too. Such as, like me, at one extreme, looking up and down the rows of my genre sections several times hoping for something new, different. So I guess there is browsing and there is browsing.

I do admit this survey, even though I believe it was about avid readers, changed my perspective on how big the gulf is between browsers and non-browsers. I don't ever remember seeing numbers put to it before, but the statements came from industry professionals--like agents and such. So I trusted their word as given. Anyway, before this survey I was thinking the difference was like 10% of readers are browsers compared to everyone else. I'm thinking the percentage of browsers are bigger than that 10% now, but still I believe there is sizable gap between browsers and non-browsers.

But again, I don't know how accurate my guesstimate is because that survey is about avid readers. I'd love to see percentages of browsers vs non-browsers of all readers, not just those who buy a lot, but including those who just buy one or two books a year.

Jodi
 

veinglory

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I find browsing online far easier than instore because the recommendation algorithms magically show me stuff I might like based on past browsing and purchasing. Far better than hopelessly looking at spines on a shelf imo
 
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shaldna

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As has been mentioned above, users don't generally 'browse' in the same way that other shoppers do, unless deliberately looking for something else. The exception I feel comes AFTER the book has been bought and read. I know that if I have enjoyed a book, that I will go back and look for other books in teh same genre, or by the same author, or in the 'customers who bought this also bought' section in amazon.
 
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OMG - who are all these people spending hours wandering through the bookstores then? ;) I've never met a reader yet who couldn't lose themselves in a bookstore - not without Herculean self-discipline.

Before I was married, I went to bookstores to find girls. It's way easier to chat up girls in bookstores or libraries than it is in bars. You actually have something to talk about and they're quiet enough to have intimate conversations.

But don't let me derail this conversation... :D
 

kuwisdelu

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While I'm as culpable as any writer or reader of browsing for hours in a bookstore, personally, I rarely if ever have actually found something I liked this way.

I find browsing online far easier than instore because the recommendation algorithms magically show me stuff I might like based on past browsing and purchasing. Far better than hopelessly looking at spines on a shelf imo

As a statistician interested in machine learning, this gives me hope for my future employment prospects.
 

scope

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As far as I'm concerned I can't imagine anything more boring, confusing, and unproductve as browsing via the internet. On the other hand, to browse in a bookstoreis is a blast. You never know what you are going to find or who you will meet.
 

veinglory

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The two are not mutually exclusive. You can prefer one, or theother, or do both. But I think it is hard to say one or the other is generically superior.
 

kuwisdelu

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As far as I'm concerned I can't imagine anything more boring, confusing, and unproductve as browsing via the internet. On the other hand, to browse in a bookstoreis is a blast. You never know what you are going to find or who you will meet.

It depends entirely how the content is arranged and presented online. It's a lot easier to screw up your presentation over the web than it is to screw up books on a shelf.

Browsing for music, for example, has come to where it's much easier, more pleasant, and far faster to do it online than in a store.
 

peter darbyshire

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I actually find it easier to browse and buy books online -- the difference is I'm browsing my feeds, not a bookstore. I'm constantly stumbling across some book or another on some site or another, then hopping over to Amazon to download the preview or even buy it outright.

On the other hand, when I browse physical bookstores I usually leave empty-handed. My reading tastes tend to be a little niche, and bookstores are increasingly moving away from carrying anything niche.

I've found I'm actually buying more books since I switched to (mainly) ebooks -- and I'm reading a wider range of authors.

I think, as kuwisdelu says, more sites will spring up that allow people to filter book selections online according to their tase. Amazon's lists are not a good way to find things you like, but other people's curation lists may be.

As for readers flocking to follow bestsellers, that's been happening in print for a long time now. It's been a while since the midlist has actually been a midlist. Maybe the midlist is now indie writers making a living at self-publishing?
 

dgaughran

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Tagging is a big factor too.

I'm not sure if we have enough data yet to draw hard and fast conclusions about whether e-tailers (what a horrible word) will increase the disparity between bestsellers and the average or least sellers, and the conclusions in the article the OP linked to do seem, to me, to be counterintuitive.

There is one important thing that was left out of that article, and the discussion so far, that feeds into Amazon's algorithms and has a big say in what books are presented to the reader: tagging.

When you enter a search term on Amazon, the results come back ordered by ‘relevance’. An algorithm decides what is relevant, and one of the factors, along with sales, are tags.

When an author or publisher puts their book on Amazon, they ‘tag’ it as ‘paranormal romance’, ‘short story’, ‘police procedural’ or whatever.

However, the important thing to note is, tagging is dynamic. Any viewer of that book’s page on Amazon (whether they have bought the book or not), can tag a book, and Amazon decides which books to display where based on this crowdsourced opinion.

And tags aren’t just about genre. You can tag a book ‘beach read’, or ‘funny book’ or whatever you like, and people searching on those terms will see your book if it has been tagged enough times (and it tickles the rest if the algorithm through sales, reviews or whatever).

The important thing for authors to note is this: clever tagging of your book can lead to a jump in the search results without any increase in sales.

More information, for those interested, here.
 

kuwisdelu

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^^Agreed. Tagging would be a great way to help people find reads they might like in an online bookstore.
 

dgaughran

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There are whole threads, six hundred pages long, with self-pubbers agreeing to tag each others work on the Kindle Boards forum.

Some of these guys are way ahead of trade publishing when it comes to digital marketing.
 

Osiander

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The middle has been dropping out of many sections of the consumer market for years in the English speaking world. Look at all the high street chains in the UK - it doesn't matter whether you're in London or Outer Nowhere, you are offered the same clothes, pharmacies, coffee chains, whatever. Genuine choice is almost extinct. It's the big brands or the micro, one-offs.

The e-publishing phenomenon will probably turn out to be very good for commercial genre fiction. Already it seems that genres/styles of writing that were dropped by big houses (horror, all sorts of pulp fiction) are experiencing an online revival. When people are in love with a genre or a particular type of story, it looks like they're keep buying paler and paler imitations of the things they loved, so a writer who is 'on trend' will probably be noticed.

What's harder to predict is fiction that doesn't fit into clear commercial categories, particularly literary fiction. Without the infrastructure of bookstores, newspaper reviews and prizes, these sorts of books might get lost.

Whatever, I think the current free-for-all, with thousands of books landing on Amazon's virtual shelves will probably collapse under its own weight some time soon and the new gatekeepers will become more important - dedicated e-romance sites, Goodreads etc.
 

dgaughran

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Osiander, your post is well-argued.

However, one point, if I may. You said that you think the current free-for-all will collapse under its own weight and the new gatekeepers will become more important. Maybe you're right, nobody knows. But, maybe you are adding a layer where there need not be one.

Maybe readers are the new gatekeepers.