… book that sells 99 copies is nothing but a stench of failure in the nostrils of the universe.

I thought that, judging by the title, the “long tail” was a process whereby a book continued to sell by dribs and drabs long after its initial release. Those 99 copies were six or seven years after the book had already sold tens of thousands of copies.

Which makes it essential to stay apprised to what is going on, to figure out how or if you can make it work for you and your individual skill sets. Which is why I posted the news of home audio book recording, for instance. Not for everyone or even most everyones. But for someone, it could be their way into making a career.

Love, C.

The article makes a couple of points that raise questions:

- It specifically addresses the midlist–and says that Long Tail retail is bad for the midlist. It helps bestsellers and helps niche products, but hurts midlist products. I’m not sure how the author comes to that conclusion; it doesn’t make sense to me.

- The author also notes that the Long Tail might permit an explosion of products to be sold, but they’ll likely be sold throug a diminishing number of channels. “Diminishing number” = (IIRC) Three: Amazon.com, eBay, and iTunes. I see that as a mixed blessing myself–Amazon.com, eBay and iTunes are providing infrastructure, eliminating the need for the small businessperson to hassle with setting up payment processing, Web sites, and all that stuff. (The small businessperson still has to handle marketing.) Where things get dangerous is when those companies start to flex their muscles and decide what’s suitable for sale, and what isn’t.

Every mall in America has the same darn stores in it,

What creeps me out is that every mall in Great Britain has most of the same stores in it, too. The rest of the stores in each mall are the same British ones, with Marx and Spencer sure to be anchoring one end.

My glass is dry, with bitter salts coating the bottom.

A book that is never published at all may one day be printed and sell 1000s of copies, but book that sells 99 copies is nothing but a stench of failure in the nostrils of the universe.

Ah… but doesn’t it depend which 99 people you sell the book to? If one of those 99 is Tim Burton and he chooses to make a feature film of your book, then that’s good.

So I’m being a little glib here. But there are certainly directors that like to find the diamonds in the rough. I don’t remember there being any eight-figure auctions for the properties behind Alexander Payne’s films (Election, Sideways, About Schmidt, etc.).

A book that is never published at all may one day be printed and sell 1000s of copies, but book that sells 99 copies is nothing but a stench of failure in the nostrils of the universe.

This, I know very well.

And what is definitely not good for authors is a system in which publishers/booksellers flourish and profit by selling 5 copies each of 100,000 titles. They have no particular incentive to sell any more of any given title, they supply no promotion, no marketing, no push behind any given title; the books are merely spores on the wind.

This, also, I know very well.