Readers Are Fickle, Learn to Embrace Us
by Jane Litte
Publishers are starting to dip their toes into the social media water and are trying to learn more about the end user of their products, the readers. I have to tell you right away, publishers, that readers are fickle.
What readers want today will not be want they want even twelve months from now. One speaker at Tools of Change said that readers are always complicating the situation by buying new devices and wanting new things. This was said with affection, though, not disdain.
It’s important to remember that readers are fickle and that there is no one set of tools that will work for every reader, all the time. When Sarah, Angie and I were preparing for our own talk at the Tools of Change, we engaged in a heated discussion over whether the cover blurb should be included at the front of an ebook or in the metadata to be pulled up at the reader’s convenience. Angie and I are both avid book readers and in some ways we are a lot alike but our own preferences in how we consume the book can be quite different.
Take a look at the iPhone/iTouch as a reader. Some people believe it is too small. Others find the convenience of the size perfect for their reading needs. Some readers like the flat readable aspect of the eink screen and others clamor for a backlight. Everyone likes the convenience of the one click shopping.
What’s the answer to the reader fickleness? It’s not to denigrate the reader for being fickle. You just have to accept it. This behavior will not change. You have to embrace it. It’s reader fickleness that allows you to take advantage of our impulse buying purchases. It’s reader fickleness that makes us take chances on new authors. It’s reader fickleness that will open new markets and new opportunities.
Embrace us readers, warts and all, and we will buy your books and be your evangelists. Denigrate or talk down to us and we will be fierce adversaries.
Comments
This is great, Jane, and it’s something I hope you’ll be able to talk more about as a guest blogger. Part of the problem, I think, is that it’s hard to know *how* to embrace your reader when you’re a publisher who has sold to middlemen for years.
I’d be really interested to hear especially about how the romance publishing and writing community has worked to embrace readers, and what specifically worked and (perhaps more interesting) what failed.
This is so true. For insiders, my next statement will appear laughably naive, but until 2009, I actually believed I was the publisher’s customer. In 2009, I learned, through extensive re education, that the customer of the publisher is the wholesaler, retailer, bookclub buyer; seemingly anyone but the reader.
Once I had accepted this, every statement to the press by publishers made sense, albeit not always in a good way. I think that publishers can still sell to the retailer, to the wholesaler, to the corporate buyer while still messaging to the reader, but it seems that an internal mind shift, akin to what I underwent in 2009, will have to take place.
>*how* to embrace your reader
Author and science fiction guru Jacqueline Lichtenberg has been blogging recently that one major reason the use of social networking to market books (or any product, really) by publishers isn’t a smashing success is because the publishers (often) aren’t the customers of the product. It’s like they enter a conversation at a party without first checking to see what’s being discussed or even taking time to listen & learn first before talking.
When I hear about the challenge you stated above, Ami, I immediately think of Sam Raimi and the Spider Man film franchise. I think one reason Raimi’s incarnations of the webbed wonder were so successful was because in addition to being an accomplished director, he was also a fan of the source material. He knew what fans wanted but also how to deliver the blockbuster that the studio required.
Maybe one way to embrace readers is to do a Sam Raimi: hire staff (editors, PR folks, art department, etc.) who are the customers–fans–of the books in question. Or tap into the fan base among the staff that may already exist. Or do some kind of outreach/focus group.
If publishers can engage in genuine dialogues with readers in forums and other online communities (as members & fans, not marketers), that would be a start. But they’d have to leave the sales pitch at the door.
[...] I did get invited to guest blog at The New Sleekness, Ami’s publishing blog. I blogged today about reader fickleness. Usually I don’t post these, in part because there is so much to post, but today’s [...]