Re: Our "publish then filter" future...

On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Lee Passey wrote:

> Setting aside the producer perspective (for the moment), and 
> turning to the consumer's perspective, if 99% of all books 
> written are crap (I'm assuming that 90% of what's published is 
> crap, and 99.9% of what goes unpublished is crap), The consumer 
> is faced with a very difficult proposition: how do I filter out 
> the crap so that what I actually buy has a better than 50/50 
> chance of being not-crap?

I've suggested before that under the current publishing model, 
everyone in the selling chain should treat as "windfall profit" 
any amount from selling a book that the reader ends up not 
wanting. (To the best of my knowledge, you can't return a book 
because you don't like it or it is badly written. Can you 
imagine if books came with a 30-day money back guarantee? If it 
was "book satisfactory or money cheerfully refunded"?)

A way around this, then, is to only sell the really committed 
reader the book AFTER they have at least started to read it.

Try this model...

1) Simultaneously publish both ebook and pbook (possibly using 
POD).

2) Do not *expect* to get paid for the ebook, but be pleased if 
it happens. Treat the ebook as marketing materials designed to 
find the reader for your work. (I don't mean teasers or partials, 
though. Whole work!) Offer to accept what the customer thinks it 
is worth if you want to earn something from the ebook. Don't 
fight customer redistribution. Some customers will redistribute 
everything, others will only redistribute what they like. Either 
one ultimately helps you.

3) Pay attention. Technorati and BigChampagne are your friends, 
and can clue you in to the need to be ready for pbook uptake, or 
an uptake in a different customer direction than you were 
expecting.

4) Really committed readers who like your work will still pay for 
printed copies. Charge appropriately. If you have a small 
number of *extremely* committed readers, create special editions, 
with special options - signatures, special included materials, 
leather bindings. These should be very expensive. Learn what it 
means to walk the demand curve.



Overall, your goal is to make money from the work -- but only as 
a whole. Don't worry about per-copy rates. That way lies madness.
The work as a whole is a project, and the returns are measured at 
the project level.

There are still advantages to publishers. They can push harder, 
find more readers faster, ante up for top banner ads at CNN and 
BoingBoing, and can likely respond faster if the pbook breaks 
wide. They can deliver per-pbook costs that are a fraction of POD 
rates. If demand warrants, bookstores will want copies, and they 
are in an ideal position to deliver them.

However, publishers do need to be ready to step in as a 
distributor if a work is already rolling. Film studios already do 
this on occasion, signing a distribution-only deal. It's worth 
less, but the risk is less.

Bookstores will have to learn that some works come with no 
returns -- because there should be enough info out there to help 
them order what they actually need. They don't need to take risks 
on a work any more.


... does this work for you?



:: chris smith ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecuna possit - cicero ::

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