Interesting Links for 9-10-2011

[andrewducker]

• The 99c novel. I already know people buying these. I wonder where the market is heading
  (tags: books business amazon ebooks)
• Blackboards in Porn - just how accurate are they?
  (tags: porn sfw blackboard maths science)
• You can't have closure. I want to know if it makes you happier if you stop trying to get it.
  (tags: closure emotions life psychology)
• Fascinating piece on how we think can read each other's emotions, even when we can't
  (tags: emotions perception AmandaKnox)
• The Judge Dredd movie is having problems...
  (tags: JudgeDredd comics movies)

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

That 99c novel thing actually drastically skews the kindle best sellers. Honestly, browsing through "kindle best sellers" on a kindle for sci-fi or fantasy it is like wading through sewage. There's really pretty little I've heard of in the top 100... it's all "part 12 the vampirisimo chronicles" and the like... multi volume "epics". There are also a lot of completely free books on the market. A lot of people just want their stuff to be read -- look how much fan-fic is out there.

The problem is that the writer of the 99c novel piece assumes that the model is that people are trying to make money and they're doing it by writing. A lot of people simply like writing and if they make some money that's a bonus. All we're seeing is that becoming mainstream.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, it's the next step of the process of amateur writers getting the same access that professional ones have.

The question is whether the market will change (with people refusing to pay a tenner for a novel because they can but them for a pound) or if we'll get filters on Amazon that say "Only show titles that come through a reputable publisher"

[steer.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure "through a reputable publisher" cuts it as a recommendation system (though it could be a temporary workaroudn for now). I mean that guarantees one person read and liked it and at least some people edited it. I can more see review aggregation and charts being the solution to the "how can I find the good stuff in a sea of dross".

I think the market will change slightly although at the end of the day a book is cheap entertainment by hourly value (say a cheap paperback costs £5, it still takes you maybe 10 hours to read -- compared to £5 for 2 hours in the cinema).

I suspect the economics will work out similarly to bands -- as barriers to market lower, a job that lots of people are willing to do for free is a job which will have a lot of people struggling to make ends meet, making a loss or not making minimum wage. Previously books which would sell incredibly little were less likely to get publisher support. Hence, I would predict a rise of articles along the lines of "I can't make a living as an author because of piracy/cheap other books/lots of crap books preventing people noticing mine" type whinges as people who were previously self-published and unpublished are now published (but still not making any money at it).

[andrewducker]

Oh, I agree that "someone liked it, and it was edited" isn't a perfect system. But it's something :->

And charts will help - but you said yourself that the Kindle charts are a mess at the moment.

And yes, I suspect that there will be a slippage of people from the "Just about making it as a full-time author" category down into "part time author with a job to support them". And no, they won't be happy about it.

[steer.livejournal.com]

"someone liked it, and it was edited" isn't a perfect system. But it's something

Indeed...

you said yourself that the Kindle charts are a mess at the moment.

I was thinking more of something like metacritic combining user ratings and critic reviews rather than sales charts.

there will be a slippage of people from the "Just about making it as a full-time author" category down into "part time author with a job to support them".

There may well be such a slippage but the more pronounced phenomenon will be the much much larger class of people who consider themselves an author (IMHO).

[andrewducker]

As in, more people will think of themselves as authors?

You're probably right. I think that we're nearing the point where a lot of people don't see a difference between bloggers and journalists, maybe authors will be next.

[steer.livejournal.com]

As in, more people will think of themselves as authors?

Exactly... A few years ago it was pretty clear. If you had a book deal you were a "published author", if not... well, a lot of people like to write. (I mean I know there were people who considered themselves "authors" despite never getting a publishing deal and in some cases never completing a book.)

Assuming that the distinction does break down even more I can see an expanding class of people who write and "get published" who earn only a few grand a year from it. Because so many people simply like writing (and no bad thing) there's bound to be a lot of such books on the market. I imagine this will lead to a lot of people who believe "authors make a living at writing, I am an author, what is wrong with the system that I do not make a living."

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Vetting of quality is a bit of an issue in a market when anyone can self-publish, people will write for free and all ebooks cost $0.99.

I can see people making money as reviewers with popular review sites being able to sell advertising. Perhaps not a living but pocket money or free books for reviewers with a good reputation and a strong following. Also people making money selling new software that helps me find high quality books as defined by me easily. I like the idea of the meta-critic.

I do pay attention to the star ratings on Amazon but they do need to approached with caution. There are often marks given for the quality of the delivery service for example and I find people are reviewers struggle to differentiate between “This book was not to my taste but was well written.” And “This book was not really badly written.”

I think this is the part of the value chain that was previously done by sub-editors and publishers and for which they were paid a salary. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it needs to cost money now.

When I was growing up in Australian I had quite low pocket money and books were relatively expensive. I was very, very conservative in my purchasing but I read voraciously from the library. I quite like the idea of having books recommended to me by a variety of people and being able to take a punt on them because they are $0.99.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I can certainly see the value of the sub-editor part of things -- but then, with luck, people who are serious about their work would pay someone to do that role anyway... I'm not sure what value the publisher adds to the chain though (marketing and a nice cover?).

I quite like the idea of having books recommended to me by a variety of people and being able to take a punt on them because they are $0.99.

I must admit that these days, while I'm not well off, I'm sufficiently well off that I don't try to save money on book purchases... it's a good few hours of my life to read a book so I don't mind a few extra quid if I think it is a better book than the $0.99 or the free book. That said, if the $0.99 book is just as good and can be reliably recommended...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

It's funny that there are attempts to drive prices down to the bottom with ebooks and mp3s, but when it comes to shopping for, for example, clothes and food, people are known to not trust low-priced items. Look at the way Sainsbury put embarassingly defensive comments about their basics items on the packaging.

The Steam top sellers is, aside from on a big release week, often packed with things on sale.

[andrewducker]

I love the Sainsbury basic comments!

And there's always a niche for more expensive items, but it's Primark that's packed to capacity.

The question is whether price is a guide to quality in books. If it is then the divisions will stay. If you can get cheap books that are as good...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I like to think of Primark as using their pricing to be upfront that their clothes are of low quality materials and made in dubious conditions in countries with sometimes lax labour laws, as opposed to more expensive clothing shops that try to hide this with higher prices to give the illusion of quality and care.

[fearmeforiampink]

Steam occurred to me as a comparison too.

With a movie, a TV series, or a computer game, they sell it at full price for a while, it is bought at that price for a while. Then when pretty much everyone who is likely to buy it at that price has done so, they drop the price, and more people buy it. It also comes from the fact that once they've paid off the cost of making it, every additional sale is more profit (assuming they don't go under the cost to actually make and distribute the thing).

It's a fairly basic bit of economics; that there are X people that will buy a product at Y price. You want to make the best profits, so looking at supply versus demand, you set your price to do so. But if you can charge different people different prices, then as long as you stay above the cost to make the thing, you're making more profit. This is why Young Persons Railcards exist, why it costs less to get tickets to things when a child, a student, or an OAP. Separating by time is just another division — the book industry already does that with hardback versus softback releases.

Now, the argument back against that is that books often have more staying power; that there isn't the march of technology, of special effects, thus they're still as good as when they were first released, whereas a year or two year old game can look a bit crap compared to a new one.

Still I do think that, whilst they'd lose out getting more money from those who discover it and would be willing to pay the full price, overall they'd benefit from far more people being willing to buy books when they're cheaper. I know with Steam, there are lots of games that I have that I absolutely would not have bought at full price, but have gotten a lot of fun out of them for my fiver (or whatever).

[doubtingmichael.livejournal.com]

This comment is far too late, but: the embarrassingly defensive comments on the Sainsbury's Basics range is the point. They are trying to make you not trust them. They want people who can afford to spend more money on their groceries to avoid the Basic range - and embarrassment is a good way to do that.

[andrewducker]

Oddly, I find them actually reassuring. They cornish pastie one, for instance, tells you that the difference between it and a normal pastie is merely slightly less meat and slightly more veg. As that difference is a-ok by me, I'm happy with Sainsbury Basic Cornish Pasties.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

It’s a truism that the price of a thing tends to fall towards to the long term marginal cost of production.

For books the costs are strange. They divide into two. Manuscript costs and distribution costs. The fixed cost to develop a new book is substantial i.e the struggling author sweating over her keyboard to produce a manuscript. Compared to traditional publishing it is a significant but not the largest part of getting a paperback into my hand. I think the other costs of editing, printing, distributing and marketing have been well understood and pretty fixed for a while for print books.

I think for ebooks author effort might be the largest single element of the costs of getting a new ebook onto a Kindle. Which makes the transition all very unclear when coupled with the fact that many people will write to a high standard for free. Also there are many rights free books out there with more being added every year.

So we have a situation here where the fixed cost of developing the book remain the same and the marginal costs of producing one extra copy become almost nil. For new authors you probably don’t find out if you have a million seller until after you have made the sunk cost investment in the manuscript.

I think an analogous industry is pharmaceuticals. Lots of sunk costs in R&D, very low marginal unit costs and many products already in existence that are better than nothing.

There are interesting interactions with other markets and interesting elasticities at work here. I do think something potentially fundamental might be happening to the book industry.

As well as publishing houses competing against other publishing houses and authors competing against other authors and (the real fight) authors competing against publishing houses the whole book industry is competing against the music industry, the television industry and the going to the pub with your mates industry for limited money and limited time. Selling ebooks at $0.99 might encourage me to buy so many books that I don’t end up buying a cable subscription.

Cheap ebooks might significantly shift the market for domestic entertainment away from TV toward reading meaning that authors enjoy a much larger overall market for their work and that more can live or make significant pocket money from their craft.

If we allow a shift in the allocation of the $0.99 price per book so that the author takes $0.50 (for the sake of my mental maths) and suggest that $50k per annum is a comfortable material standard of living then an author needs to sell 100,000 copies per year every year or about 2 million over 18 months in order to retire.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I quite often buy free/89p books for my Kindle. I also buy full price ones from established authors I like and enjoy reading(cough, Jilly Cooper, cough). The cheap/ free books approach has worked for me - If I buy it and enjoy it, i have a habit that when I finish one of my low cost purchases i jump into the store to see what else is available by the same author and frequently will buy a higher priced book if I enjoyed the cheap one. This is why my Kindle has a library of 100+ books on it waiting on me selecting the next one.

[steer.livejournal.com]

That's interesting -- if other people replicate that sort of behaviour then it may be the market will not change too much in terms of overall revenue to authors (instead of buying and reading 1 five pound book you buy 5 one pound books but only read 1 -- roughly speaking)... though are you likely to continue downloading so many "in case" if your kindle library has 400 or even 1000 unread books?

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

The stuff I've been reading is more like 89p, enjoyed, buy author's next book at £3.47. It's more a one to one repurchase - as I finish I buy one/two more at a higher price by the same author. Of course some of the cheap books are first novels with no alternatives, so don't generate a further purchase for me. I do a sweep of the bestsellers once a week and buy things that sound interesting if they're under £2, so have built a library baseed on random purchases I may read one day. Of course some of these i give up and remove from my kindle within the first 2% - Im a fickle reader, biggest waste of my money this year was the Millenium Trilogy - stupidly i bought them all then gave up!

I've just reviewed my bank account and I reckon about £15 - £20 a month to Amazon for ebooks. The kindle revitalised my reading as I used to only read in bed at night so maybe spent a fiver a month on a paperback, now my kindle goes in my handbag and gets read at work, when someone's late for a meeting with me etc. It's also moved me onto genres I'd never considered before(Andy will testify that he'd never have anticipated me enjoying a Charlie Stross book and asking for similar recommendations).

I recently broke my kindle(the screen does not survive an overweight females full weight on it) and was about to buy a new one as I couldn't imagine going back to the mere paperback. I called Amazon to ask if they did repairs, to work out if that would be cheaper than a whole new one(I actually had set my sights on a Nook). This led to me discovering that broken screens are covered by their guarantee - yes even though I did it by standing on it! The Customer Service guy was so damn helpful and I had a brand new replacement in my hand by 11am the following day - Amazon are obviously well aware that they make great money from the books thus such a giving guarantee - they want to retain my custom rather than lose me to the Nook.

[steer.livejournal.com]

So it may be you're actually spending more than you were even though the average price is cheaper.

Like you, kindle revived my reading. Tired eyes meant that I was reading in bed, getting tied easily and falling asleep after 20 minutes. The crisp flatness of the kindle screen means I don't get fatigued reading off it.

I found the same thing with kindle customer support. I had a "stuck pixel". They not only replaced it, they sent me a new one immediately with just my word for it and gave me a month to return the old one. A great service, I had a new one, like you, the next morning even though my old one was still very usable.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Definitely spending more. Also recommending kindles to everyone I know. Amazon rock!

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do the same thing. I liked a book at 86p, which kept me occupied for ages. I searched for their other stuff, and bought a £2.99 book.

I bought a book at £6/7, because it seemed like the kind of thing I'd enjoy; girl coming of age trained as a cleric, but has innate spellcasting ability. It was AWFUL. The writing was so bad, and I doubt they've ever heard of '"show" not "tell"'. I think their work does have a publisher, so I suppose it works both ways. Just because it's expensive doesn't mean it's going to be good.

[joexnz.livejournal.com]

The closure thing. I've noticed this, for me it tends to be a series of small realisations that allow things to become slowly less important in my life, that they simply cease to cause the same level of pain when I think about them. How you deal with something, is just as important as the thing itself. And is more likely to affect you for longer.

Also why would you want things to back to how they were, if they did we'd never learn or evolve, which for was kind of the point.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I was thinking on the way to work about Kindles and children.

I think childrens' books might be in hard copy for longer than adult books.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Children's books are larger, colour, and handled by clumsy people who drool a lot. The right digital interface for that is probably a way off :->

You'll probably find that children's toy stores will stock them a lot, once paper book stores die off.