Eric Felton decried the demise of the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing companies in a Wall Street Journal article titled, Cherish the Book Publishers—You’ll Miss Them When They’re Gone. His basic premise is that the onslaught of e-publishing via Kindle and Nook is flooding the market with so much crap that now readers will have to wade through it all, and it isn’t likely that good authors can be so easily found.
There are several fallacies with his examples and arguments. Other authors have already picked those apart: Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Joe Konrath, and David Gaughran, to name three I’m directly aware of. What I want to focus on is something Mrs. Rusch touched on and is the main focus of this article: the reader.
I spoke to this in a previous column at Grasping for the Wind, The New Slush Reader. However, I want to drill down on one argument I made there which shows Mr. Felton’s point to be null and void. And what may that be? He fails to take into account how a reader finds books.
Based on Mr. Felton’s premise, you get the picture of a reader opening up an Amazon web page and then getting flooded with so much trashy books on a search that they throw their arms up and log off. Or have bought one too many self-published books that were riddled with typos and bad grammar that they’ve swore off buying anymore. But this assumes that the only filter a reader has ever used is the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing, which simply isn’t true.
There are two primary ways that a reader finds new books/authors to read: by browsing and by recommendations, whether we are talking about a brick and mortar bookstore or shopping online. Usually a particular individual will use one method more than the other, and the majority fall into the recommendation category.
The browser type reader enjoys going down the isle and finding a title or cover that peaks their interest enough to pick it up, read the blurb, read a page or two, and decide if this is something they would like to buy. They know most of the books they pick up they will put back. They know that 90% or more of what they consider will for them be “crap.” Not that the book itself necessarily is crap, but if the book isn’t written well (and yes, traditional publishing puts out badly written books too), is boring, doesn’t grab the reader in the first page or two, then for that person it is “crap.” That is, a book they don’t care to invest their money to buy and/or their time to read.
Likewise, on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or other online retailers, you generally have the sample option. If a title or cover catches your eye, it is a simple process to read a page or two. If you see several typos on the page, you know the author is lazy, just as you would know in a physical store that the author and the publisher were lazy. Or you read the first page, and like many books you’ll find on bookstore shelves, the characters are cardboard, the writing dull, the hook absent or weak, and so you’ll virtually “put it back on the shelf” and move to the next book. You don’t fret that the list is several hundred books long. You know you’re not going to look at all of them any more than you would check out every book in Borders to decide what you wanted to buy, if any, before walking out the door.
The truth is over 80% of books at a traditional publisher lose money. It is only the few best sellers at the top which keep a publisher afloat. But that means the vast majority of books put out by publishers are for most readers, “crap.” That is, most readers don’t consider that book worth their time to read. It is obvious that the reader has been reading slush for a long time. All the gatekeeper did was to control what choices the reader had to look at based on what they think would or should sell, instead of letting the reader make that choice.
Readers are not changing how they approach browsing. Whether we are talking 5,000 books or 50,000 books, they don’t care because they know they aren’t going to look at them all in either instance. Thus, the influx of self-published titles will have relatively little effect upon your average browser type reader looking for a new author to read.
“But, what about the increase of crappy books? Won’t that make it harder for the reader to find the good stuff?”
There’s an assumption lying in those words which folks aren’t taking into account. They assume with self-publishing that the crappy books will rise drastically, but the good stuff will not, or only marginally so. Granted, the percentage rise of junk compared to the percentage rise of good self-published books may not match the percentage in traditionally published titles, but there will be a sizable corresponding rise in good self-published books, much more than it appears people are taking into account.
Let’s put up some hypothetical numbers to demonstrate what I’m getting at. Let’s say prior to the explosion of self-publishing, the average reader discovered books they liked 5% of the time. And lets use a good round number of 10,000 new books published in a year’s time. That would mean your average reader would have among the 10,000 books they could potentially browse through, 500 books they would like if they could find them.
Now let’s say with the explosion of indie books, it adds 20,000 new titles to the pile each year, giving the reader a total of 30,000 new books to browse through. And let’s say the average reader will only like 2% of those books, meaning among those 20,000 indie books, they would have 400 books they would enjoy reading if they came across them. That means among the 30,000 books they could wade through, there would be 900 they would pick up if they came across them, which amounts to a 3% chance of finding a book they like instead of 5%. If that scenario was true, it would mean it grew a tad harder to find a book the reader likes, but only by 2%.
And that’s assuming the percentage of good stuff would be smaller on the indie side compared to traditionally published books. While those scared of wading from the waters of traditional publishing assume that would be the case, it is not a given. Consider the fact that the gatekeepers prevent as many good authors from ever getting published under the old model as they did the bad ones. With indie publishing, all the good authors out there can be available for the average reader to find. I would propose that the percentage of books any one reader likes will rise with indie publishing, not go down. The chance of the average browsing reader finding a book they like in that case would actually be much higher than it was when traditional publishing controlled who hit the shelves at the bookstore. It would be a fallacy to assume it will be harder, and highly unlikely that it will be significantly harder to find the good stuff for the average reader.
It is an unproven assumption that the explosion of indie publishing will impact the browser person significantly. He or she will run across more crap, but still have as good a chance as ever to find the gems they love, as it has always been. Maybe even a better chance. The browsing reader expects to run across mostly crap they don’t like. That will be nothing new to them.
The second group, those who base their new author purchases on recommendations, will rely upon the browser folk to find things they like and say so in a blog review or such. Or they may hear a recommendation at work, or from a professional reviewer. But even then, they will not run out and buy it sight unseen unless they totally trust their source to know what they like. They will still check out the blurb, read the first page or two before they make their decision.
For these folk, which are the majority of readers, the explosion of indie publishing will only mean one thing: the potential to find amazing authors that before were hidden in publishing slush piles. It makes sense. Let’s say you have 5,000 publishers, which means you have 5,000 slush piles (we’re ignoring the fact that many publishers have given the slush piles over to agents, but the idea is the same in either case). That means a good book could languish in that pile for some time. Then it has to be something the slush reader at the house likes, and wants to push. And if they have other books like that one, even if good, they’ll decline. If the slush reader is in a bad mood, even a good book may get the boot. After all, they have only a few slots to fill, and thousands of books vying for that slot. You have a better chance of winning American Idol.
Now let’s assume there are one million readers out there, and 20% of those are browsers. That’s 200,000 slush piles compared to 5,000. Guess which scenario is more likely to find the good authors? That’s right, the one with more people reading the slush piles. That means there is a much higher chance that the folks who check out a new author because of a recommendation will hear about them from a source they trust with the explosion of indie publishing. Because for them, the gatekeepers have multiplied substantially, meaning a greater number of good authors will find their way to them. And that’s using numbers that are likely high on the publishing side, and low on the reader side, simply to demonstrate the dynamic at work here. When you have multiplied the number of people reading the original slush pile, you greatly multiple the number of good authors who float to the top.
The bottom line? Those who rely upon recommendations will end up finding more good authors, not less, and will wade through no more crap than they have in the past years. What it means for this majority of readers is more options, more great authors to read, and that will result in more people reading. For the browsers, they will attack the slush pile as they always have. Yes, the pile will be bigger but that won’t matter because they never were able to read the whole pile anyway. Yes, they will run across more crap, but they also know there are more good authors hidden in that crap. The chances of finding them may go down slightly, but may also rise substantially now that all the good authors can get published who wish to, not just those who get lucky with the few traditional publishing gatekeepers out there. In any event, they will browse as they always have, and find books they enjoy as they always have.
Because Mr. Felten failed to take these realities into account, his assumptions are based upon his perceptions and ignore the real possibility that for many readers the waning influence of traditional publishers over what gets published will have a negligible effect, if any at all, concerning how easy it will be to find new authors they want to read. And for the majority of readers who rely upon recommendations, it will mean an increase of good authors they will run across, not less.
Are you mostly a browser or rely upon recommendations to find new authors? Have you found it harder or easier to find new authors you like to read in the last year or two than previously?
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[...] Wading Through the Crap [...]
This post is just as riddled with fallacies, which is ironic when you argue that the post linked at the start is equally plagued by them.
Two examples:
1. You say: “Now let’s say with the explosion of indie books, it adds 20,000 new titles to the pile each year, giving the reader a total of 30,000 new books to browse through. And let’s say the average reader will only like 2% of those books, meaning among those 20,000 indie books, they would have 400 books they would enjoy reading if they came across them. That means among the 30,000 books they could wade through, there would be 900 they would pick up if they came across them, which amounts to a 3% chance of finding a book they like instead of 5%. If that scenario was true, it would mean it grew a tad harder to find a book the reader likes, but only by 2%.”
While a 2% decrease seems minor, in the grand scheme of book “finding,” it’s not. When you take into account the time, energy, and other variables that go into book “finding,” that 2% decrease is substantial, particularly since it represents a 40% reduction in possibility. That’s nothing to scoff at. You’re using numerical trickery here to suggest something that isn’t such a big deal, but you leave out the primary thing that makes readers very unlikely to buy anything whatsoever: wasting their time. Even a 1% (or 20%) decrease would put off a substantial number of readers who simply can’t be bothered to put in the extra effort to find something they may or may not like (which, let’s face it, even when you take into account the various ways readers come to books, and, thus, choose them, that doesn’t include the time and effort it takes for that reader to actually discover if they got the right book; this implies that your model must take into account the percentage of occurrences in which a reader found a book, but discovered upon reading that it wasn’t to their liking — contrary to popular belief in self-publishing circles, most readers aren’t willing to read huge previews and the like; if you’re lucky, they’ll read a page or two, which explains why publishers are so adamant about those first few pages, even today).
2. You spend a lot of time talking about slush piles and how readers see the demise of the slush pile as something good for them, since it means there will be more good books to find. The problem with this is that you earlier argue that the publication form is one of the least relevant methods by which readers come to books, and, thus, a direct contradiction of your earlier sentiments.
Now, setting aside the lack of statistical support for most of what we’re talking about (nobody really knows how many readers care about the publisher and how many don’t, etc. only anecdotal evidence that suggests they avoid SPed books in bookstores), you still have the problem here of turning readers into slush readers. I hate everything to do with this concept, because the moment you make it my job as a reader to do a job other people should be doing and getting paid for (publishers, reviewers, editors, and related people, some of which may be related to non-traditional publishing models) is the moment you take all the joy out of reading, after which I’ll simply stop buying books. I’m not kidding. I will stop buying books completely, with the exception of things printed from the previous era of publishing. I have no incentive as a reader to participate in a system that wants me to do extra effort to find what I want. Most other markets don’t do this to me; in reality, most other markets have made it *easier* for me to find what I want to consume (think super stores, malls, online music stores with really good recommendation features, online music sites for streaming music, etc. etc etc etc etc etc). Yet it’s only in the book publishing world that we talk about making the consumer the worker.
I wouldn’t be going out on a limb if I said a lot of readers who have recently come to routine reading would be equally inclined to leave the whole thing behind. Easy access isn’t necessarily a good thing (at least, it comes with consequences). It’s all about coupling easy access with tools that help the consumer find what they want without creating additional effort. The fact that SPers (and indies, trads, and other publishing models) are talking about a future which makes the consumer an unpaid intern is the most bizarre kind of archaic logic to me…
That’s enough from me now…
Let me get this straight: you will stop reading books as soon as you have a larger crop of good books to choose from?
That may be true for you, but you are a statistical outlier.
Readers won’t be “turned into” slush readers. They already are. Unless they are responding directly to WoM, all other marketing is, in effect, a request for the potential buyer to slush read them.
You don’t, after all, get to sample the milk at the grocery store, or look for the best parts of an online music preview.
Books are the only product which can be consumed and replaced on the shelf for future sale – they inherently, by design, invite slush.
There’s nothing archaic about book makers doing everything they can to tap into that natural market advantage. In fact, readers, as a market (not, apparently you as an individual) will reject the publishers who don’t take advantage of the peculiarity of the product.
Last I checked, you didn’t *need* to sample the milk in the grocery store. You *expect* that the gallon you buy with the expiration date two weeks from now will be fresh and tasty (assuming you like milk). Music is also another poor example to use, since previewing music is a) not terribly time consuming; and b) built into contemporary music consumption precisely because it has always been an industry which uses its tools to bring the music to you so you can hear it before you buy the album (radio, online radio, etc. etc. etc., which you can listen to without cutting off the rest of your bodily functions).
And, actually, no, readers are not already slush readers, generally speaking. Readers have an expectation from established publishers that the book will be “good.” Whether “good” as in a good read or “good” as in put together well (design, copy editing, etc.). They *still* have that expectation, and a lot of them are getting burned even by the major publishers. The reality is that a lot of readers will stop reading books, because it’s an unnecessary financial risk. Reading takes time and effort and money. Watching movies really doesn’t take much effort, very little time in comparison, and, depending how you watch them, very little money. Since a great deal of readers now are the bulge from the rise in YA fic (spearheaded in part by Rowling and other YA “greats”), you can expect severe drop off when you turn them, as consumers and readers, into slush readers.
What makes me an outlier is that I think about these things. Readers generally don’t. Avid readers certainly do, but most readers aren’t avid readers. And those people are folks who are already very busy, easily bored, etc. They are also fickle (in the sense that they don’t have loyalty to the “form” in which their entertainment comes and will shift quickly to other avenues when one thing ceases to give them what they want).
(Note: when you talk about marketing, you’re again talking about books which have loaded expectations — i.e., that this was professionally published. Marketing isn’t for slush reading purposes; marketing is to nab the interest of reviewers and readers. Reviewers, however, are slush readers. Advanced slush readers, though.)
I agree that readers will reject publishes who don’t take advantage of the product. I would say this has more to do with the fact that the publishers, for the most part, aren’t responding well to consumer demands. Extreme cost, lazy business practices, etc. Publishers are just as likely to burn readers as lazy self-publishers. I’ve said recently that publishers are shooting themselves in the foot right now. Angry Robot Books is the exception (I would say Tor is the same, but they are owned by a larger publisher, which means they don’t have nearly as much control over the product as ARB).
This is sort of rambly, though. Let me know if anything doesn’t make sense.
I have had a much easier time getting recommendations from like-minded readers, or readers whose opinions I hold in high regard, than in years passed.
The blogosphere has been a godsend. For instance, GFTW and SFSignal have been indispensable for me in picking out quality sci-fi titles and authors, which is a genre I’m still warming up to–in the literary form, anyway. And when it comes to my genre of choice, horror, the recommendations I get are so much better than meandering a bookstore or sifting Amazon.com.
The Kindle Store is a morass, yes. But so is a medium-to-large scale brick & mortar bookstore. The demise of mass market and publishers may hinder the people who read primarily whatever is schilled on the Today Show or on display in airports and Walmart, but the ravenous readers aren’t going to have a problem.
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