Books don’t sell
seths.blog
Books don’t sell
“According to its proponents, the Long Tail would revitalize our culture by expanding the scope of the arts and giving a boost to visionaries on the fringes of society.”
the Long Tail concept refers to businesses that focus on products and services with almost no customers. The basic idea is that you can make a lot of money selling to these microsco... See more
the Long Tail concept refers to businesses that focus on products and services with almost no customers. The basic idea is that you can make a lot of money selling to these microsco... See more
Ted Gioia • Where Did the Long Tail Go?
Keely Adler added
ian ross added
Writing a book won’t make you rich. For non fiction authors writing for business - a book should be a bridge, between your words….and your work in the world. Offering an end experience - an opportunity for your ideal audience or quintessential client to immerse themselves more deeply in your work in the world - this is really the only monetization strategy most authors and entrepreneurs ought to care about in 2024 - and beyond.
ian ross and added
Never before has so much culture been available to so many at such little cost.
There’s just one tiny problem.
Where’s the audience? The supply of culture is HUGE and GROWING. But the demand side of the equation is ugly.
In many cases—newspaper subscribers, album purchases, movie tickets sold, etc.—the metrics have been shrinking or even collapsing.
... See moreTed Gioia • The State of the Culture
sari added
But for content platforms, the move to digital content hasn’t been correlated with a burgeoning long tail: the top creators are massively successful, while long-tail creators are barely getting by.
Harvard Business Review • Building the Middle Class of the Creator Economy
sari added
Nonetheless, for the majority of creators, the Long Tail has underdelivered financially. “The way [Anderson] wrote about it caused people to think that individual content creators will suddenly make more money than they used to,” Edery says, “and I just don’t know that that’s true.”
Marina Krakovsky • What Everyone Got Wrong About ‘the Long Tail’
sari added
There are several: books don’t die anymore and disappear from the competition, and in fact, books that were thought to have died have been brought back to life in the digital no-inventory-necessary world. That adds further competition to face each new book as it is published and makes the challenge more difficult for each new commercial effort.
Mike Shatzkin • The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know®
In his “1,000 True Fans” essay, Kelly explains that he wasn’t as excited about this new economic model as others seemed to be. “The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people: a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers,” he writes. “But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators.” If yo... See more
Cal Newport • The Rise of the Internet’s Creative Middle Class
sari added