Chekhov's Mistress
The Culture of Impatience And The Real Market
Dan Green made some good points last week on "The Culture of Impatience" in publishing and I thought I would add to them from a slightly different angle.
From Wired’s editor Chris Anderson’s forthcoming The Long Tail:
What’s truly amazing about the long tail is the sheer size of it. Again if you combine enough of the non-hits, you’ve actually established a market that rivals the hits. The average Borders carries 100,000 titles…the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is already a third the size of the existing market – and what’s more, it’s growing quickly. If these growth trends continue, the potential book market may actually be half again as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: ‘The biggest money is in the smallest sales.’
While Americans are undoubtedly blockbuster oriented, I think we are
moving in the direction of niche culture and that will be a significant
and lasting benefit to the publishing industry and art-culture. This is
Young’s point [who Dan quotes as saying “The blockbuster novel is
heading the way of the mayfly”] and Anderson’s: bestsellers are (soon
to be) no longer the singularly most important market and it is
technology that is facilitating the shift.
A commenter on Dan’s post mentions Gilbert Sorrentino (who, sadly, just died). I like Sorrentino’s work. I would have never known about him if it weren’t for blogs. Sorrentino’s books may not sit on the front shelf of Barnes & Noble, but his work can be kept in print if people have access to his books, which they do through on-line sources/small presses. Furthermore, if he were a new author with a book to sell, he could publish his book himself in small batches or print-on-demand, thanks to companies like Lulu and market it on the Web. That is – if you’ve not been initiated in the latest buzzwords – what they call "disruptive technology."
This technology isn’t just about the Amazonians either. I was in a terrific little used bookstore yesterday, Heights Books in Brooklyn, and heard the owner say that he had moved his billing over to Abebooks on April 3rd. Prior to that day, every little obscure book in his store – I picked up looked at a $200 book on typesetting poetry – was only available to those that happened to wander in, but today his 7662 title inventory is online and available to essentially anyone in the world and is even findable.
So I’m less interested in the supposed demise of independent bookstores as a sign that the blockbusters and corporate conglomerates are winning and more interested in the rise of blogs and other technologies that can put writers on the map that might never before have had a chance.
comments
Is there anyone writing fiction for online end use?
Sufferwords
– sufferwords (05/30 at 01:35 PM)
Love the new look, Bud.
– Ella (05/30 at 07:00 PM)
Interesting post Bud. I think independants are going the way of mom & pop grocery stores and that’s not always a bad thing.
Selection is better with fresher items and I think we will find that book buyers will gravitate to where they can get the books they want. They may fuss a first but if they can order it online they soon will just remember the independants as the old days.
– Steve Clackson (06/01 at 01:24 AM)
I am currently living the theory of this post.
I’ll get back to you this summer about book sale numbers. Good or bad…
– Robert Bruce (06/05 at 03:00 AM)
Sufferwords, I am publishing my fiction online. If you have a look at my blog, you’ll see that I’m planning to serialise a YA fantasy novel in weekly instalments, if there is enough interest.
– Lee (06/12 at 08:32 AM)
Just a quick note to thank you for the kind words about our store, Heights Books, and to reassure you and the other readers of your blog that the Internet is actually helping independent used bookstores to stay alive. That and the pricing of new books, which drives more and more customers to used bookstores. We don’t have every title in our store online—just a fraction, which still amounts to several thousand titles. The danger that corporate behemoths pose is to independent bookstores that sell new books, for they can secure and offer discounts that the independents cannot get.
– RBBernstein (09/21 at 05:39 PM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: May 30, 2006
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:6
- Links to this Post: Technorati
