I really like Chris Anderson’s books Free and The Long Tail. For me there is a small paradox between the two that I have been wanting to write about for some time. Let’s look at this from the perspective of a book publisher.
This publisher has read The Long Tail and is aware that there is an increasing ability to sell what used to be niche products and that their total sales may be increasingly comprised of these niche products. Suppose this publisher has a book called Used to be Cool that at one point in time sold well, but no longer does. In the past the publisher might have let the book go out of print; however, with the knowledge of The Long Tail, the publisher lets the book go into print on demand knowing that as time goes by small quantities of this book will sell. This, in aggregate with other similar books will equal a lot of sales.
Enter Free. The author of Used to be Cool has read Free and is convinced that the publisher should give away a free digital version of her book in order to increase her visibility as an author. She is excited about the book and believes that many more people would access it (and perhaps even buy print copies) if a free digital version were available. The publisher sees that “free” could possibily help them make money in this particular case, but wonder about the precedent it would create.
This publisher has more than 1,000 books similar to Used to be Cool. If they make digital versions available, charge just $3.00 per book, and each book sells 1 copy a month (that’s the long tail isn’t it?) they will make $36,000 each year on these books. And that’s mostly profit because there is nothing to print/ship/store.
What if they make these 1,000 books available for free? One line of logic says that more people will find out about the books and that perhaps 1 additional person each month will buy a print copy who would not have otherwise bought it, because of the free version. Another line of logic says that giving digital versions away for free would cannibalize the minimal amount of sales the books already have. The former argument is the one I believe to be correct; however, I can understand why a publisher would be nervous about the gamble.
If the future of business is selling less of more, how concerned should publishers be about giving away that “more”?
2 Responses
Matt Sommer
02|Nov|2009 1It seems that giving away raises your profile but that you quickly reach the point of diminishing marginal returns. Perhaps instead of giving away an entire book for free, an author should give away excerpts and bonus chapters, thereby raising their profile but retaining the ability to make a profit from their work. The music equivalent would be to give away a B-Side single or one track from an album in order to convince buyers to purchase all the songs.
Bill Simmons from ESPN is using the strategy above for a new release. It would be interesting to see if he could generate sales for his new book by giving away other works. Perhaps the strategy of Free doesn’t work as well for an established author because you may alienate your fans that purchased previous works. Any risk there? Is the Free strategy primarily for those wanting to raise their profile? I’ll have to pick up Free and The Long Tail. I assume I can get both for free?
admin
05|Dec|2009 2Matt — thanks for sharing those thoughts. I agree there may be troubles with this “diminishing marginal returns.” I am interested to see how this plays out with books where sales have flattened out or even with out-of-print books. If the commercial life of the book is over, is there any harm in giving it away? I don’t think The Long Tail is available for free, and the written version of Free is no longer available for free. But an audio version of Free is available at http://hyperionbooks.com/free/. I really enjoyed it!
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