Kindles for All!
by Ami Greko
Like the oft-lamented “smell of books,” I’ve found that there there are some concepts that people consistently get hung up on when discussing ebooks. I used to try to puzzle out answers to these, but in this new, Zen-like approach I’m experimenting with in 2010, I’ve decided to try to actually evaluate the meanings behind the questions. Get your Desktop Rock Garden ready: we’re going behind the scenes on three of them this week (question one is here).
Question 2: “Did you know a lot of people buy ebooks and then don’t finish them?”
Believe me, I’m not disputing the point: it’s a fact that people buy ebooks they don’t finish. It’s also a fact that people buy plenty of *physical* books that they don’t finish—my reading history is littered with quality (and not-so-quality) books I never could quite seal the deal on.
But, for the sake of argument, even if publishing were somehow able to prove that people abandon more ebooks that physical books, isn’t that kind of a weird platform to build a marketing strategy around? New plan, editors: you only need to read the first seven chapters in any book before buying! Designers, just slap those last 100 pages on there in Courier typeface! It’s a TIME SAVER.
This comment tends to come up in those ebook meetings where most of the discussion revolves around anecdotes. It’s kind of a problem the industry has: notoriously low salaries, coupled with the reluctance/inability of major publishing houses to invest in new technology for their staff, means that many people haven’t actually used these devices in any meaningful way for commercial reading, generally through no fault of their own. These devices are expensive in and of themselves, and if you work in publishing, using one of them for your pleasure reading also short circuits one of the perks of the business: free books. It can be an expensive experiment for someone in the lower ranks of a big house.
This creates the sort of environment where any kind of consumer ebook experience is interesting, but ultimately difficult for people in house to agree on how to act upon. I think one takeaway from the statement ‘people don’t finish all of their ebooks,’ is that there’s potentially a market for shorter content in ebook format. I’m certainly not the first person to say this, but as a short story addict, it’s a concept I’d love to see more people experiment with.
What other ebook anecdotes are you hearing, and do you think they provide a useful roadmap for a new way of selling or marketing?
Comments
“many people haven’t actually used these devices in any meaningful way for commercial reading”
Interestingly, I suspect Amazon was attempting to address exactly this point when it offered publishers the 40% discount on Kindles over the holidays. Getting the staff hooked is very smart strategy.
Good point, Guy. Just out of curiosity, does anyone remember where the discounting was promoted? I bought my mom a Kindle for Christmas and would have absolutely taken advantage of it if I’d know. Did I miss an email, or was it on Amazon?
Macmillan gave many employees Sony readers about a year or two ago, but they were netblind and mostly set up for handling manuscripts—part of a corporate green initiative to cut down on paper. While laudable, this hardly exposes publishers’ staff to the actual consumer experience associated with ereaders. This largely reflects the type of attitude I’ve seen corporations take towards electronics: the corporation will go through many steps to set up a bespoke system which, while easy to manage and understand for its employees (after the mandatory training session, of course), completely divorces their users from any actual, practical, and real consumer experience. The net result is that even those employees who use ereaders on a daily basis are completely sequestered from the actual ebook buying-and-consuming customer experience, and utterly ignorant to the very real hoops that ereader owners have to jump through on a daily basis.
@Ami: I imagine each company handled it differently, and wouldn’t be surprised if some opted not to invite Dracula into their house at all, but the offer came from Amazon and had to be submitted as a group.
From what I understand, there was some sort of bulk order promotion for publishers, wherein a discount was offered. I can’t speak to who took advantage of it, but have it on good authority it was due to bulk orders and not something that was necessarily public knowledge.
::slinks back into hole::
Well, good to know. I must have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time and didn’t hear about it. (Either that, or I was busy hanging garlic to keep Dracula at bay ; )
I am confused why not reading the book matters in a business context. If they buy the book should publishers care if they finish it? Obviously, authors and those concerned about the art aspect care but not sure it impacts the business model.
I both buy and download a lot of books for my Kindle that I have yet to read. And I am sure I will develop a large backlog of digital books just as I do with physical books. Part of being a book addict I suppose.
And of course, there are vast amounts of people who buy books because it is the hot thing (political tell all, memoir, fiction bestseller, etc.) but then never end up reading it or finishing it. Again, this helps publishers earn money, right?
Bottom line: I don’t see the difference nor the point. Publishers want people to buy books. If they read them all the better …
I 100% agree with everything you’re saying, Kevin! It’s an unusual thing to say–it’s perfectly fine not to finish an ebook, or a physical book, or every article in every issue of The New Yorker. As you so eloquently said, being deep in reading debt is part of being a book addict.
[...] Kindles for All!Or, why investing in the technology people use might help publishing people understand their customers. [...]
It would be really interesting to see short stories find a real audience again with the advent of e-readers. Everything old is new again. And to see the novella perhaps really take off, as it’s a length long enough to develop a good story but short enough to not get lost in, would be cool.
I also think whether or not people abandon ebooks is a moot point. If a story is good no-one stops reading halfway through just because of the device they’re using. That’s asinine. As you say plenty of physical books get abandoned too. And from the publisher’s perspective, I don’t know why they should care what someone does with their purchase after they have it (short of piracy of course.)
What diff does it make to the publisher whether they read it all? If they keep buying ebooks that’s their issue, not the publisher’s.
My company offered staff the 40% discount before Christmas and I bought ten of them. Does it say something that I didn’t buy one for myself though?