

The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath) - nochiel
http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/02/end-of-bestseller.html

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patio11
Lines like this:

 _[I don't do interviews because] I hate taking time away from my writing, and
I'm making enough money to stop doing things that I dislike._

are some of the many reasons I love this blog.

I don't know if that is going to be the experience of most authors, though. I
think there is a wee bit of App Store Goldrush going on where the ridiculous
superiority of the distribution channel makes marketing less necessary than it
previously was for people at the head of the distribution. Konrath -- who I
literally take physical notes from when it comes to marketing -- may be able
to get by with less hustling than he used to, but I think more authors are
going to approach the sort of tactics one uses to sell ebooks or software --
list building, online marketing (aside from just "uploading to Amazon", etc).

I think the same is likely true of the App Store too, come to think of it.
Angry Birds can be Angry Birds, but everyone else has to work against the
platform's strong incentive to marginalize most of the catalog on any given
day.

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jimbokun
"If every ebook is cheap, and readers pig out on them like we do at an all-
you-can-eat buffet, where will anyone find the time to read all of those
ebooks?"

"Answer: they won't."

Just wanted to say that as I was reading the part about price and space not
being important in the decision process, I thought "Yes, but what about _time_
to read as scarce resource?"

And then hit the above quoted section, as if my thoughts were spoken out loud
and he was responding to them.

Anticipating your reader's thought process this well is a hallmark of good
writing.

ps What's coop?

~~~
gmkoliver
_ps What's coop?_

It's when the publisher buys a prominent display in your store, similar to how
stores display groceries.

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zipdog
The rise in availability of entertainment (books, movies, etc) is actually
having the opposite effect: the bestseller is more important than ever. With
so much to choose from, people are more likely to go on recommendations, and
the trend in recommendations has always been that once something (of
reasonable quality) gets a little traction it tends to outstrip its
competition.

Of course, there's more room for niches (so we might see more domain
bestsellers in smaller domains).

Meanwhile, the author of this post, who obviously has a rich marketing
background and has used it in this piece, seems to downplay the role of
marketing (pretty much all publishers do is marketing) in getting bestsellers
going.

As well, any level of anticipation for a title shows that bestsellers are
still strong - the post assumes people choose what to buy once they see the
shelves, but often they choose before that.

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orky56
This article is really pushing the fact that books have become commodities.
They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost. Pricing is less around
value and more on cost plus.

I personally believe that there are salient differences between books
(quality, time spent, book cover, number of pages, etc.) and having a big name
publisher can open many opportunities for new authors just like in the music
industry. I guess it would be more accurate to say that publishers can free up
authors' time by using the publisher's resources for marketing and
distribution, etc.

On a site like Hacker News, we take the success of product differentiation for
granted. The best product will differentiate itself based on sound
understanding of product development and will thus succeed. It would be unsafe
to assume that business aspects are irrelevant.

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robryan
If you look at the app store, there is room for free apps, for quality apps
around the 99 cent price point and niche apps/ big names up at the $10 mark. I
think a similar thing will happen in the ebook market, personally depending on
the book I'm more than happy to pay at the $10-$12 price point which I guess
is at the top of the market.

I'm not the fastest reader and I don't devote more than probably an hour a day
on average to long form reading so one book can keep me going for some time,
I'm sure others that power through books in a day would feel differently about
the high price point.

~~~
runevault
The way "also bought by" on amazon plays out actually helps with this price
segmentation. The people on a writer forum I follow noticed that
(unsurprisingly) kindle bestsellers tend to have other kindle bestsellers in
their also bought list, while other books mostly have books in the same price
range (2.99s having other 2.99s, .99s having other .99s, etc) as part of their
their also bought lists.

Be curious to see if that continues to play out, however.

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salemh
I would be interested in this writers forum, and saw no contact information in
your profile to ask :)

~~~
runevault
you can hit me up at Patrick [at] patrickjsullivan.me

