Romance novelists are long tailers, too

A few weeks ago I spoke at a conference for romance novelists, which was fascinating. I knew nothing about that world. Some mindblowers (aside from being the only man there, which was a little unnerving):

• Many of them publish three books a year. Their readers just want to know what happens next.
• One told me that at $4.99 she felt her novel was "priced wrong". I nodded sympathetically at that shameful discounting. Wrong. She felt she was priced too high.
• Fads in the industry are a common complaint. One quote: "I rushed to get on the vampire bandwagon, and by the time my book came out, all anybody wanted was Regency."
• Like everyone else, most romance novelists are getting forced out of limited retail shelf space. Now that publishers have to pay slotting fees to get "cover-out" placement in a bookstore, they're far more conservative about what they'll publish and fewer copies of each book are published. Many writers get paid just a few thousand dollars for their books.

Finally, in doing some research on how romance novelists promote themselves, I came across the following romance novelist site, which sums up my impressions of that world perfectly. I'll post a screenshot without comment:

Comments

[nakliyat]

thank you veryy much...veryy veryy much nice.....

[Dave Davis]

An argument can be made that many shifts we're labelling as "long tail" phenomenon are more accurately described as dislocations caused by the shift from agriculture to infoculture. Your recent post on the blogger's critique of the music industry alongside this one on romance novels are both indications that our old social models are breaking down, alongside the zero-sum agro/industrial economic models. The music blogger post puts a finer point on it: in a world where there is greater and more critical demand for audio/music assets ever, rates for the work have fallen.

While the music merchendisers of the world are busy telling everyone they can be an artist, and Apple's Garageband and Sony's Acid have made that dream considerably easier, the fact is Johnny Guitar is not competing with Beck and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in any meaningful way. The average consumer spends no more on music than 20 years ago, and in spite of the proliferation of tools and CD release parties, shelf space hasn't grown to support all these new artists. All the growth is at the bottom, not as a "long tail", but more like a swamp, because the vast majority of consumers have no interest whatsoever in the vast majority of work being released. Put another way: The easy availability of sea shells has no impact on demand for sea shells. Value added to the shells might, however...

If we ignore the long tail for a moment, it's apparent the laws of supply and demand are seriously out of whack. Music is only one example. More broadly, the labor market is an even clearer indicator. Low unemployment rates have not raised wages in any meaningful way, nor has worker mobility. Cost of services, especially things like health care, is also disconnected from supply. Costs rise much faster than suppliers have shrunk or their market has grown.

These disconnections indicate a profound change. In the late 20th Century it was fashionable to compare the "information age" with the "industrial age", the next, natural phase of development in a direct line from the one truly "revolutionary" adaptation, agriculture. Today it's clear that infoculture is a much deeper change than industrialism. Agricultural revolution set the stage for every era until now, allowing us to "create" wealth from dirt. On a sparsely populated planet, this was "good enough", but it placed a premium on the control of real estate, and later atoms, or resources in general. This led to many wars, and much misery. Infoculture is the first change since agriculture to truly transform our concepts of wealth. Infoculture created wealth from nothing but imagination and/or knowledge.

The Zero-Sum World is all but gone because we can create wealth from information. In today's world the richest people are not farmers, industrialists, bankers or landlords. They aren't politicians or kings either. The new tycoons, like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison et al, control no atoms, and their wealth consists entirely of ideas and abstractions.

We've not asked the hard questions this raises at all. Indeed, Katrina and Iraq show we're avoiding them. For instance hunger in the United States is a political choice we made in the 1980s, not an unavoidable consequence of competition for resources, as it once was. Universal health care was rejected in the 1990s because the zero-sum crowd feared all forms of dependency and government involvement in markets. Another choice. Finally, we have not questioned the economic wilding of US businesses, and their rape of our political system. We're perversely buy the notion that Swift-boating candidates is a form of free speech, rather than a hijacking of our government by Corporations hiding behind fake fronts.

These distortions are all symptoms of the same disease. The richest and most powerful people on the planet see the writing on the wall. Human physical labor is becoming irrelevant, and control of atoms has ever-less to do with one's status, wealth and power. The past 8 years have been all about locking in gains for those at the top, and setting up a new kind of aristocracy. Dumbing down the masses leaves more on the table for the Hilton sisters.

It will be quite awhile before we can begin to confront the biggest question of all: The equitable assignment of value to attention and intellectual property. Today these critical resources are being exploited by the old agricultural order. We're short-changed for attention and intellectual property is hoarded and controlled in increasingly irrational ways. Copyright and patent law no longer bears resemblance to the rationale behind it when companies can patent people's genes or other people's ideas and make the fight too expensive for mortals to engage.

Publishers of Romance novels behave as we expect. They realize it's a numbers game for them, and cornering a number of titles, or better yet their authors, sets them up for a kind of success that only they can make a living from. They clearly get the long tail idea! The long tail itself exists as a consequence of the greatest change in the human condition since agriculture. But it's a revolution, not an evolution. The rules have stopped functioning, and Adam Smith is irrelevant in a world without scarcity. Historically revolutions are bloody affairs, and as we enter this one, all one needs to do is look to the White House to see how far the Bad Guys are willing to go to maintain an unsustainable status quo. What makes it scary: The Bad Guys are largely Cold Warriors, brought up on Mutually Assured Destruction. It's hard to believe they'll flinch or ever give an inch.

More thoughts on infoculture replacing agriculture:
http://dataesthetic.org/dbdd/?p=47

-d-

[Tamara Paton]

I work for a romance novel publisher, one that most would consider the market leader if not market dominator.

My brain can't sift through the detail of the previous comment turned PhD dissertation. If anyone has some practical suggestions for how publishers can better serve romance novelists, I'd love to hear your thoughts. In particular, I'd like to better understand the implications of a $4.99 price point being too high.

In the meantime, I'm going back to THE NYMPH KING by Gena Showalter. When a story of men who need sex to maintain their strength hits the NYT Bestseller List, I can't help but love my work.

[evden eve nakliyat]

thanks for informations..
very nice...

[Dave Davis]

Specific suggestions for publishers:

1) create communities, both online and real world, around your products to connect users and authors. All it takes is one or two fans and an author to create something that looks like "buzz", and raise profile and googlerank of the author

2) create more editions and variations of each title released. Audiobooks are just one outlet - how about customized on-screen versions too? Most pdf's and ebooks are formatted for paper, not screens. Screens are primary in our windowed reality (http://dataesthetic.org/dbdd/?page_id=29) and objects that violate this principle are less satisfying (and valuable) than those that don't! Bottom line: More editions/formats = more sales. Use authors themselves as readers for audiobooks, but develop your most popular authors with talent as voice talent for other books. This adds a new income stream for those authors who are capable, and extends each author's "brand" identification and fan base. Obviously author's celebrity friends and influencers like "super fans" can be used in this effort as well.

3) To support item 2 above, a principle known as "over-shooting", used in video/audio production applies. In publishing it's expressed as: Design once, release many. The editing process should be informed by the understanding that the book will be delivered in many forms, so pagination, diagrams, illustration etc must accomodate the least flexible formats.

4) We live in an era of "database driven design". This blog is literally a database. Each post, comment and link a record. This page is a report. Publishing systems are no different. In such a framework, the richness of the database itself is key to the value equation. So, when concepting cover art, each sketch, preliminary design, and rejected plan can be repurposed WITHIN online and audiobook editions, making them desireable in their own right. In short, you can sell $4.99 paper copies AND $1 screen-fitted pdf/e-books to the same people, if each have distinct and unique content. If the audiobook contains an interview and discussion with the author, or great voice talent, you get more sales there too. In short you can create many products from a singular body of creative work.

Think about how songs can appear on a primary album, but also as singles, remixes, greatist hits albums, compilations, and ultimately have many other lives, each with revenue attached!

5) Consider serializing or condensing parts of books, and delivering them as podcasts (both voice and pdf) via iTunes. They will serve as both commercials, and samples of the freshest work, carving out new audiences. Older titles can be revived in new ways. Every novel has a hook. Good editors can find, repackage and deliver that hook as a short story or serialized segment, and that hook can catch readers.

6) Within the form of contemporary romance novels lie seeds for new, unrealized forms and products. Graphic novels are now an adult medium. Podcast-like serials are now merging into TV: This American Life started as a PRI radio show, but now lives on Showtime. The potential to bring good stories to life in new ways is enormous.

Example: I have a 16 chapter book. In addition to a $4.99 paperback, I can split the chapters into individual "tracks" on iTunes for $0.50, and sell the whole as an "album" for the same $4.99. I can create a "sample" chapter, or redesign Chapter 1 as a hook, and give it away for free, alongside the paid tracks. To support these products, I create a wiki around the author or title or both.

Outcome: We've created one new revenue stream, and one no-cost promotional stream, and a venue for fans to rave about the title. Furthermore, we've advanced the Romance Novel format by allowing readers to enjoy the novel while driving to work or the store, while shopping, or while doing chores. This adds value for the reader, both by expanding her "reading" time, and entertaining/distracting her from the less pleasant parts of life. We've improved her life by some small measure!

7) Selling or even giving away serialized content, along with the other "splits" and alternative products (not just some - like the Iraq Study Group these suggestions work only as a unit, not as a buffet), will generate new PR and enthusiasm around your titles if promoted as a new way. New models attract attention you need to sell old titles in these new ways. If your company embraces these changes, you will not only sell more products (and increase ROI on titles you choose to work this way in your catalog), you'll build a community of readers around your brand, and ultimately attract the best/brightest talent among authors.

All of this is possible because of the changes I outlined above in the first comment. Our world has changed in such a fundamental way that old rules and tactics no longer apply as before. The first comment was the cause. This one is effect or impact. Sorry for not being more explicit.

[Barbara Samuel]

I'm reading The Long Tail right now and someone sent me a link to this post. Great ideas, Dave, and answered a question I've had for awhile about publishing/writing.

And about the website above, I just want to say romance is a very broad base, and there are some highly sophisticated marketers out there. Just saying.

[Dave Davis]

Just one more I left off...

8) Look for unique, associations between titles and other unrelated businesses which might be frequented by target readers. For instance, cafes and retailers that don't necessarily handle books, but might fit with a specific title and it's audience. Starbucks has become one of the largest music retailers in the country because they recognized early that their female customer's demographic matched that of CD buyers (most CDs are bought by women!). This connection not only enriches Starbucks and their Hear Music imprint, it enriches artists, labels and publishers who find themselves placed at the counter. Romance novels seem to be ideal "impulse buys" in non-standard venues, and there are plenty of untapped opportunities.

For instance, I think of Doctors offices, hospitals, and other professional offices where it's customary to wait to be called. Serialized versions of novels, printed more like magazines (or even AS magazines with a collection of short pieces) could easily live in waiting rooms, designed to hook specific readers with powerful short stories and episodically arranged sections of books. In this example, the shape and look of the printed piece matter greatly, but again, it's an opportunity to expand and enrich the format by breaking out of the 4"x6" paperback box.

-d-

[Eben Carlson]

Reading the first comment, it's still a zero-sum world, it's just that the zero sum has switched from production to consumption. Production may be all but unlimited but consumers have a very set and possibly shrinking amount of attention with which to consume new creations.

The breakdown occurs because we don't yet differentiate in the public sphere between content that inspires Bill Gates for two weeks and content that a six-year old ignores on her way to a show about Barbie.

Why? Because Bill is a pretty shrewd consumer and likely immune to advertising. The six-year old wants just about anything with big eyes in pink (I agree with her about pink, btw).

That's the problem with giving away the music and selling shows.

Without a sliding price scale for the content itself, there is no incentive for anyone to make TV shows, books, songs, magazines, or movies that appeal to folks outside of the broadest demographic. Which means that most of our top producers have little or no culture.

Those who do chose to create for those in niche markets are so restrained financially that even if they do have a great idea, they will not be afforded the time it will take to follow it up. And their original idea will likely be absorbed and executed more efficiently by a larger company with additional sources of revenue. (Now usually reflected in the business plan).

Seem like an awfully slow way to run an mature economy--through a one idea at a time bottleneck.

As long as it's more cost efficient to hang a facade that looks like real brick off an steel-frame building than it is to build the real thing, that's what we'll have. Until we reward the thing itself (instead of the window dressing), we'll have replicas promising us they're authentic instead of actual real things themselves.

Ironically, the thing holding us back is--us!. We've got money in the bank but insist we can't afford what we want. (Nor will we pay with our time to produce the content we want). --Fear and scarcity rear their ugly heads.

The industrial revolution was won with a massive push in productive, engineering and scientific faith. The creative revolution won't be won until we apply the same determination and belief to consumption.

Lots of people aren't hearing this--why else would we be stuck. Only it's not who we think has us stuck. It's us.

Which explains why a group of highly intelligent, caring, college educated folks like ourselves are sitting around discussing romance novels. Until we have a premium mass culture, there's simply nothing else to do.

[Rik]

The thing that strikes me most about these sort of industries, is that they're a world of their own, with a distinct set of rules and behaviours. One need only look at the titles, cover art or the price point to see this is very true for romance novelists. I wonder if you look at it that way, if you can still speak of a long tail, or just a world that's like what 'the real world' used to be like, only smaller. You know, with bandwagons that everyone tries to be on and all...

[Dave Davis]

I'm not sure Eben's thesis holds up:
"Reading the first comment, it's still a zero-sum world, it's just that the zero sum has switched from production to consumption. Production may be all but unlimited but consumers have a very set and possibly shrinking amount of attention with which to consume new creations."

I agree with many of the observations made in his post, however he radically under-estimates the shift we're going through, likening it to the industrial "revolution", which was really an evolution, a logical expansion of the agricultural order in the physical world. The problems with the statement above are fundamental and unavoidable:
1) Our material productive capacity is not the shift in question, and in fact it remains a "zero sum game", at least wrt the available atoms on the planet. that it outstrips our capacity to consume is not significant since markets and natural greed actively regulate production.

2) On the other hand, our consumptive capacity, including attention, is growing, and will eventually far exceed available time. Agents can and will actively surf networks in our stead, wrangling bits that might interest us, as well as those which affect us. As time goes on the capacity of those agents will expand to allow autonomous decision making and consumption if IP. My iLike client in iTunes (not to mention podcast subscriptions) does this already.

3) As the band Tortoise noted: Millions living today will never die. Not only do we breed, we've slowed down death world wide. Eventually we'll be able to replace worn out parts at will. Death will be the province of choice and accident in the next century. Until population growth hits 0, consumptive capacity will continue to grow. I don't see that milestone arriving in my lifetime.

4) Our free time will continue to expand once we confront the reality that productive work is not necessarily the point of our existence, and we reach a point where we can no longer find meaningful work for all members of society. Robots, automation and other technologies will inevitably reduce the time and labor each of us is required to put forth to survive, or even thrive. Today we see a true inversion in value: By and large those who do the least physical labor earn the most money. The historic value equation is entirely upside down. In the Agricultural era (esp the industrial end of it), the most wealthy were often most idle (hence the term "idle rich") In the datacultural era the poor are idled, and the most rich are actively engaged in funfunfun/consumption.

Sooner or later we'll have to admit that there's plenty of food for all. We'll have to admit the crippled and wretched don't really need to pull themselves up by bootstraps or beg on the streets, but can be granted the leisure of the wealthy, with no ill-effect to the wealthy or anyone else, since again, it's NOT a zero sum game and the cost of this support is negligible. The markets are already broken.

So, while there really is a true "zero sum" of atoms, consumptive capacity and time are expanding as rapidly or even more than production. Every year there are more of us, and technology multiplies our ability to use all sorts of things.

I agree with many of the observations, but I have to say our consumptive power is growing alongside production, rendering some of your points moot, at least over time.

-d-

[kabin]

thanks...
Kabin
Konteyner