Generation Gap: publishing and the on-demand culture

[fjtorres]

From the BUSINESS RUSCH website:
http://kriswrites.com/2014/04/16/the...tional-divide/

As usual, KKR has some insights to offer, this time on the growing generation gap between publishing, built to the old school paradigm of "limited availability" and the readers' on-demand culture in the ebook age.

If you walked down the street on any given night in America, looking at the reflection of the televisions in your neighbors’ windows, you had a one in three chance of knowing what they were watching, even if they had the curtains closed. If they had the curtains open, then you could see an actor or two, and realize exactly what they were watching—and what time it was at that moment.

Things were that static. You also knew if you were walking, and, say, Bonanza was on, you would have to hurry home to catch the rest of it. You might not get to see the beginning ever (or so you thought then).

Those of us raised in that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it world had a sense of urgency about everything we loved. If we didn’t schedule ourselves around a TV show, we’d miss it. If we missed the opening weekend to a film, we might not see it. If we weren’t listening to the radio during a baseball game, we might never understand the nuances—we’d have to stick with the reported coverage the next day.

That’s changed. I don’t feel any urgency at all about finding what I love. I just deleted a show to make room on my DVR, secure in the knowledge that I can pick up that series on demand when I’m ready to.

On demand.

On demand requires quite a mental shift for those of us raised in the old Get-It-Now world. And most of us have made some of that shift. We’re aware that we can buy something when we want it or watch a show whenever we feel like it, but we’re not aware of the other habits and things that are changing.

The problems come from the fact that those of us who run things—people in our forties, fifties, and sixties—use metrics that were developed by our parents for their world, that tightly controlled Mad Men world where everyone was expected to be the same, not just in what they wore or bought but in what they listened to or watched or read as well.

The bestseller list?

It measures velocity. (A good essay on this topic, “The Meaningless Metrics of Fame,” came from Mike Briggs, husband of Patricia Briggs, earlier this week. I’ve also dealt with it.)

Reviews?

They only want new books, and then only at the time of release.

Brick and mortar bookstores?

They only have room for the latest releases, and then only the ones that are the most popular with their customers (whoever those folks might be).

Books have come late to this fight. Books have been available on demand for only about four years now, in the U.S. In other countries, there’s been even less time.

Lots more at the source. Especially on the subject of dated, meaningless metrics.

Very good read.

[ebusinesstutor]

Reading Rusch's posts is like an in-depth course on publishing for authors. I highly recommend to my author clients that they read her blog every week,

She has an excellent point about on-demand. In our household we "cut the cord" and watch all our tv shows and movies via streaming like Netflix. All on-demand and NO commercials.

I expect ebooks to be the same way. It is frustrating when a hardcover is release and then you have to wait months for the paperback if you aren't a hardcover collector. I would like to see HC, PB and e-book all released simultaneously.

Waiting is artificial - I am willing to buy the product so why make me wait?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Waiting is artificial - I am willing to buy the product so why make me wait?

Because you might be one of those that are too impatient to wait and will buy the more expensive product. When you have a monopoly on distribution of a particular product, there is no race to the bottom price-wise. If you think there's a better scheme than they're currently using to make money, you'll have to prove it to them the hard way. I'm sure they've played with the parameters and watched to see what made them the most money overall.

As a consumer, I'm with you 100%. I hate getting volumes in a series 6 months or a year apart. There seems to be some kind of interplay with marketing for other products that I don't care about, and I and my buying patterns lose.

P.S. And I never did buy the third volume of the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" books. They kept it at the hardcover for years, trying to milk the market. A pox on those spineless consumers who couldn't wait.

[Ninjalawyer]

Somewhat unrelated, but I often feel like the world should be much more "on-demand" than it is. Right now, I can watch some movies on Netflix online - a curated set of movies that Netflix has managed to secure permission for. Yet, with their physical disc service, it was possible to get a much vaster collection of movies mailed to you (thanks to the first sale doctrine in the U.S.), despite the fact that delivering movies online should be much, much easier.

There are other examples of this (no inter-library loans for ebooks, having to view ebooks in a special reading room rather than at home, etc.), but you get my point. It seems strange that we're moving to digital goods, but creating a permission culture that makes those digital goods less convenient in some ways than the physical goods they're replacing (or supplementing).

[Jessica Lares]

When I was working on a movie's online presence, one of the things that was noted in the guidelines and advice is that when a movie has to compete with a library of other titles, especially old ones, you're going to have a hard time. The industry doesn't want Netflix to be the place you primarily subscribe just to watch a catalogue of old favorites, they want you to watch what they just put out. They don't need to make an additional $2 mil with some old James Bond film, they want to make that money with the new one, so it pushes for an additional installment, awards, and acclaim.

It is the kind of demand that has poisoned the music industry with reissues, remasters, new collections of work that's about to expire, etc, etc.

I'm the kind of person who'd rather wait and save money to be honest. I take a long time to read a book as it is.

[QuantumIguana]

It may be true that once upon a time if someone was watching TV you knew they were watching one of three shows. But the opposite is true with newspapers. Each city used to have multiple newspapers, there were newspapers for every demographic. It's dwindled down where having more than one is less than common.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

When I was working on a movie's online presence, one of the things that was noted in the guidelines and advice is that when a movie has to compete with a library of other titles, especially old ones, you're going to have a hard time. The industry doesn't want Netflix to be the place you primarily subscribe just to watch a catalogue of old favorites, they want you to watch what they just put out. They don't need to make an additional $2 mil with some old James Bond film, they want to make that money with the new one, so it pushes for an additional installment, awards, and acclaim.

It is the kind of demand that has poisoned the music industry with reissues, remasters, new collections of work that's about to expire, etc, etc.

I'm the kind of person who'd rather wait and save money to be honest. I take a long time to read a book as it is.

An interesting post.

I don't mind waiting for the most part unless it is a lineup for the washroom.
I have too many books to read, too much content to watch, too many games to play and bizarrely enough at the moment too much food to eat.

Still I have moments like today when I am running out of milk for my coffee that I think nostalgically of the bygone days when milk magically turned up on your doorstep every morning before dawn.

Helen

[Barcey]

I'm not sure that this is a generation gap, I think it's more of a general expectation gap regardless of your age. The marketplace is changing.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I'm not sure that this is a generation gap, I think it's more of a general expectation gap regardless of your age. The marketplace is changing.

Once upon a time, people would order from the Sears catalog and wait weeks for the item to arrive. It's not because they had more patience, they simply didn't have any other choice. Whenever people have been offered goods faster, they have availed themselves of this option. There has always been a demand to get items as quickly as possible.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Once upon a time, people would order from the Sears catalog and wait weeks for the item to arrive. It's not because they had more patience, they simply didn't have any other choice. Whenever people have been offered goods faster, they have availed themselves of this option. There has always been a demand to get items as quickly as possible.

Still happens - now it is just eBay I am waiting for to deliver the products instead of Sears.

Nice to get treasures in the mail...

[Lemurion]

For me, the important point is not so much that people have less patience than they used to, but that the "blink and you'll miss it," sense of urgency is gone.

When I was a kid, if I missed a movie at the local theater it meant waiting years for a chance to see it on TV, if it ever made it to one of our local stations. Now the expectation has changed to one where it doesn't matter if you catch that first airing because you still have all the other options that didn't exist in the 70's.

There's a particular kind of urgency that's just gone.

[jandrew]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

For me, the important point is not so much that people have less patience than they used to, but that the "blink and you'll miss it," sense of urgency is gone.

Oh, I don't know. It seems the younger generation is running around with even more of a sense of urgency these days. Perhaps it's a different urgency. Not so much because they fear they might miss something, but because they'll miss their chance to take part in the earliest social media commentary about that something (or perhaps to avoid having that something spoiled by the aforementioned commentary which they can't seem to turn off or do without).

[gmw]

It does seem a strange contradiction. There should be no need for the same sense of urgency now - we know the book/movie/music will still be there ... whenever. We should be able to relax. So why the rush? But it's not working like that. People queue up the next famous thing. They pay premiums to be among the first to get something.

Is it, as jandrew suggests, that they want to be part of the social media commentary. To be part of some 15 seconds of fame (there's no time to get 15 minutes any more). Maybe. Or maybe it's an acknowledgement that the flood of information coming at us never stops, so if we don't grab it now, we'll never get a chance to come back to it. (Which is, of course, an illusion, but an illusion that the media likes to encourage.)

[fjtorres]

The rush to consume is still there... but only for certain things.
And yes, the drive is social.
But it is very limited: people rush to catch the big summer blockbusters or the scare of the week flicks because the former are event releases and the latter are ephemeral. In both cases, it is a social need to be current that drives the "herd", not a fear of losing access.
But for most products, only true fans really feel the pressure.

The new CAPTAIN AMERICA movie? Yes, you want to catch it soonish to know what the whole "Hail Hydra" meme is about. The closely tied-in AGENTS OF SHIELD TV show? Not so much. You can DVD it, watch it on Hulu or the ABC streaming app, get the DVD set in the summer, or catch it on Netflix in the fall when the movie comes out on disc. So if the social driver isn't there for you there is no rush.

The thing is, the social driver is limited; the biggest "must-see" product of the season isn't even a movie, but a gritty fantasy series on HBO that 90% of the country doesn't care about. Other notable products are a historical drama about medieval "biker gangs", or a period drama about the 1960's or a fluffy farce about nerds. All appealing to narrow slices of the community. The urgency to "get it now" is equally narrow and strictly for fans of that given niche. For everybody else it's a yawner.

The market is so fragmented the very terms "hit" and "bestseller" are nearly meaningless and even "urgent" stuff isn't all that urgent.

[speakingtohe]

There is also the same desire to have certain things that is mostly a personal appeal of said thing.
When I was very young the Christmas catalogue was a source of both joy and pain. So many things I wanted and usually I would get one. Never two that I recall. Of course that made me more fortunate than most of the world's population, but try telling that to a 10 year old

Then it was clothes and music.

Now that I am fortunate enough to afford most of what I think I want, the urgency and desire is much less. Perhaps because I don't tweet? (well I tweeted once, but I think I got away with it).

My feeling is that the object or experience is the main attraction. The social media aspects a distant second.

Helen