Implications of ebooks to the Long Tail

[mldavis2]

None of the eBook readers is really limited to one vendor, nor are eBooks from a given vendor available only on that vendor's eReader. Conversion is simple enough with Calibre or other software, and DRM can be removed if you push the limits of ethics a bit for your own use. There are very few books available (for example) for non-Kindle readers that are not available on Amazon. An alternate option is to use the computer reader software on a computer to buy and read a DRM-enabled book from another vendor that doesn't work on another reader. Content has become less a factor than the media functionality.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Jack Tingle

Um, the last time I checked, Amazon does all of the things you listed. The author interviews are more author pages, but the effect is similar. I think you need a little more research.

Regards,
Jack Tingle

I'm aware of what Amazon has, don't mistake lack of understanding on your part with lack of knowledge on mine. Why does Starbuck's prosper? After all, McDonalds sales coffee. Why don't people who buy from Starbuck's just buy coffee in a regular restaurant? I can buy bagels at Publix, why go to a stand alone bagel shop? The answer is that people will go to a specialty shop when they either get better product, or they can get that product in a setting that is more pleasing to them.

If I could find an ebook store where, when I'm browsing for a new SF/F ebook, I didn't have to scroll through 10 pages of porn, self published books, and public domain books to find actual newly published SF/F ebooks then that's where I go. Amazon uses the publishers to maintain their book database because it would be expensive to try to maintain it themselves. They push the cost to someone else. Thus, you get a list that has a bunch of extra junk put in by people gaming the system. An ebook store what specialized in a specific genre could maintain such a list themselves with a degree of accuracy that a broad based store like Amazon can't afford to do.

A genre specific ebook store could afford to generate author pages that include things like series info, the order of books and the like, things that I frequently don't find on Amazon author's pages. Yes, I know I can simply do a google search and find that info, but the point is convenience and flow making a more pleasant shopping experience. They would also be more likely to keep up with the genre specific news such as a particular author coming out with a new book, or passing away, or some backlist books finally making it to ebooks.

Reader recommendations in a genre specific ebook store would be more likely to have better recommendations, plus you could have a community that is more in touch with what is going on in that specific genre. I use SF/F because I like SF/F, but any genre can be serviced in such a manner.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by KenJackson

Please don't think I'm starting a real business. This is a hypothetical exercise.

OK then, hypothetically speaking then:

It is much easier to start an ebook store with 300k titles than a paper book (online) store that offers 300k titles.

However, you are vastly underestimating the resources involved.

You still need rock-solid web servers, secure credit-card processing, sophisticated databases to both run your website and track sales, customer service, advertising, and people to set up and run your company and system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You are not going to have much luck running a setup like that out of your cousin's basement.

I'm pretty sure you'd need at least some outside funding, most likely from VC's who are going to think you're nuts for taking on Amazon, Apple, B&N and others. Unless you have some take on things, or offer a service, that is both unique and difficult for the big companies to replicate.

And again, major corporations that already have a lot of these advantages are entering the space and getting destroyed (cf Borders/Kobo).

Originally Posted by KenJackson

I went looking for a bar graph or chart of annual book sales vs publisher but couldn't find one. It would be interesting to see if the tail is as long on that graph as you suggest.

I'm not sure what you mean by that, especially since I'm not saying the long tail is not important or had nothing to do with Amazon's success. My point is only that it is one element among many.

Originally Posted by KenJackson

And yes, some totally unexplored aspect of ebooks could give excellent traction, and that would be an effect. And since ebook sales are so new, I'm sure there are some of those to be found.

Yep, it's possible so I wouldn't rule it out. But the key is that if someone small is going to blow up big on that basis, it needs to be unique and difficult to replicate. I don't believe ebooks offers that particular combination.

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

However, you are vastly underestimating the resources involved.

You still need rock-solid web servers, secure credit-card processing, sophisticated databases to both run your website and track sales, customer service, advertising, and people to set up and run your company and system 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. You are not going to have much luck running a setup like that out of your cousin's basement.

I don't doubt your analysis of what's needed, but let's handle my end from a different perspective. How big would I need to be in relation to Amazon? Could I start with startup capital equal to 1/100 of Amazon's capitalization? Surely. How about 1/1000? Could I possibly compete with a starting capitalization of a meager one ten-thousandth of my main competitor?

Googling reveals Amazon.com's (AMZN) capitalization at about $82 billion. One ten-thousandth would be over $8 million dollars. Would that get me a rock-solid web server, databases, automated order-fulfilment, etc. and keep me going with a handful of employees (no need for shipping or receiving!) plus advertising (no need for a warehouse!) until I became profitable?

I'm not even very interested in the answer because it's an unfair question. An ebook-only store doesn't have to invest in stock (books) or support thereof, whereas a large part of Amazon's investment must surely be stock (books and other products) and the means to warehouse and ship.

Originally Posted by KenJackson

I went looking for a bar graph or chart of annual book sales vs publisher but couldn't find one. It would be interesting to see if the tail is as long on that graph as you suggest.

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I'm not sure what you mean by that, ...

I'm suggesting you implied the other kind of graph. That's interesting and applicable. I hadn't thought of it.

That is, I had been only considering a graph of sales vs individual book titles. But you made me wonder what it would look like if we graphed sales vs publishing companies, since I am guessing I could get an agreement per publisher instead of per book.

There has been some interesting feedback in this thread, though I'm loosing interest in pursuing it. The key point hasn't changed. Amazon's ability to stock very low-volume books due to their overall huge volume (the long tail of the sales vs individual book graph) is taken to it's extreme with ebooks, which require no stock at all regardless of their sales volume.

And I further contend that this opens a new door for competition because the new long tail should be exploitable by much smaller companies.

[modwitch]

I think you are correct that ebooks might solve the backend challenge of opening your own bookstore (stocking enough inventory to be interesting when someone comes to shop). However, I don't know that they do a whole lot to solve the perennial front end challenge - getting people to show up to shop.

Offering a wide inventory isn't interesting any more, or even notable. Amazon and several others have price match policies, so if you start pulling in any traffic at all, I don't think you're going to get to keep a lower price on record. It will be hard to compete with the "click and its on your Kindle" functionality of Amazon, so you'll be competing for the ebook consumers savvy enough to use Calibre or at least knowledgeable enough to load a downloaded file onto their ereader.

I think this hypothetical gets a lot more interesting if you have an interesting take on the question of how to acquire customers.