The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath) • Hacker News Board

Re: The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath)

#11

Post by nochiel » Tue, Feb 08, 2011, 5:06 PM UTC

orky56 wrote: post #2

This article is really pushing the fact that books have become commodities. They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost. Pricing is less around value and more on cost plus. I personally believe that there are salient differences between books (quality, time spent, book cover, number of pages, etc.) and having a big name publisher can open many opportunities for new authors just like in the music industry.…

> They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost.

I'm not certain that books ever competed on quality. A cursory glance at the NY Times best-seller list of the past few years seems to indicate that quality isn't a [major] factor. Unless you somehow consider Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, Twilight, and so on, to somehow be the paragon of quality literature.

Re: The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath)

#12

Post by larrik » Tue, Feb 08, 2011, 6:56 PM UTC

nochiel wrote: post #11

orky56 wrote: post #2

This article is really pushing the fact that books have become commodities. They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost. Pricing is less around value and more on cost plus. I personally believe that there are salient differences between books (quality, time spent, book cover, number of pages, etc.) and having a big name publisher can open many opportunities for new authors just like in the music industry.…

> They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost. I'm not certain that books ever competed on quality. A cursory glance at the NY Times best-seller list of the past few years seems to indicate that quality isn't a [major] factor. Unless you somehow consider Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, Twilight, and so on, to somehow be the paragon of quality literature.

You're confusing "quality literature" with "books people like to read." They aren't the same (though they may overlap).

The Da Vinci Code keeps a frenetic pace that makes "quality" secondary, and quite difficult to achieve. (I would submit that The Bourne Supremacy is superior in both pacing and quality, however).

Harry Potter is insanely accessible and easy to read, and has a very surprising amount of internal consistency, even over 7 books (which is in stark contrast to most mainstream sci-fi/fantasy series).

As for Twilight, I don't know what makes a book appeal to that demographic, but it seems pretty different than any area I've dabbled in as a reader.

(I worry that giving opinions like these opens me up for some interesting flaming, but whatever.

Re: The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath)

#13

Post by salemh » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 5:23 AM UTC

runevault wrote: post #10

robryan wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the app store, there is room for free apps, for quality apps around the 99 cent price point and niche apps/ big names up at the $10 mark. I think a similar thing will happen in the ebook market, personally depending on the book I'm more than happy to pay at the $10-$12 price point which I guess is at the top of the market. I'm not the fastest reader and I don't devote more than probably an hour a day o…

The way "also bought by" on amazon plays out actually helps with this price segmentation. The people on a writer forum I follow noticed that (unsurprisingly) kindle bestsellers tend to have other kindle bestsellers in their also bought list, while other books mostly have books in the same price range (2.99s having other 2.99s, .99s having other .99s, etc) as part of their their also bought lists. Be curious to see if…

I would be interested in this writers forum, and saw no contact information in your profile to ask :)

Re: The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath)

#14

Post by nochiel » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 3:40 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #12

nochiel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost. I'm not certain that books ever competed on quality. A cursory glance at the NY Times best-seller list of the past few years seems to indicate that quality isn't a [major] factor. Unless you somehow consider Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code, Twilight, and so on, to somehow be the paragon of quality literature.

You're confusing "quality literature" with "books people like to read." They aren't the same (though they may overlap). The Da Vinci Code keeps a frenetic pace that makes "quality" secondary, and quite difficult to achieve. (I would submit that The Bourne Supremacy is superior in both pacing and quality, however). Harry Potter is insanely accessible and easy to read, and has a very surprising amount of internal consi…

> You're confusing "quality literature" with "books people like to read."

I'm not confusing anything. The comment I responded to stated that "books have become commodities. They no longer compete on quality but rather with cost."

Assume it is true, as insinuated, that books did compete on quality, then the result of winning that competition is a given book becoming widely read (in other words "books people like to read"). I submitted that line of thinking has a false premise.

That's all I was responding to. No confusion whatsoever.

Re: The end of the betseller (by J. Konrath)

#15

Post by runevault » Wed, Feb 09, 2011, 6:27 PM UTC

salemh wrote: post #13

runevault wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way "also bought by" on amazon plays out actually helps with this price segmentation. The people on a writer forum I follow noticed that (unsurprisingly) kindle bestsellers tend to have other kindle bestsellers in their also bought list, while other books mostly have books in the same price range (2.99s having other 2.99s, .99s having other .99s, etc) as part of their their also bought lists. Be curious to see if…

I would be interested in this writers forum, and saw no contact information in your profile to ask :)

you can hit me up at Patrick [at] patrickjsullivan.me