Re. The Future
by Tim O'Reilly
September 1998
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 08:42:15 +0200
From: "Tim O'Reilly" <tim@oreilly.com>
Organization: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
To: list@studioB.com
Subject: Re. The Future
I wanted to respond to Joseph Sinclair's anecdote about the guy selling
5000 copies of the hundred dollar book online.
As I've noted before on the list, I worked my way up from self-publisher
of a few books (albeit pre-web) to one of the five or six largest
computer book publishers in America, so I have some relevant
experience. Some thoughts:
Single data points do not make a curve. This is exactly the kind of
thinking that leads hundreds of writers to try to produce the next
bestseller under the current system. This anecdote has exactly the same
value to the average writer as the following: "I know a guy who wrote a
book aimed at dummies that sold several million copies." Or "I know a
guy who sells 20,000 copies/year of his book from the back of talks that
he gives." Or "I know a guy who got drunk one night, came up with a
list of crazy ideas for bestsellers, and ended up selling one of them to
Random House and going on to become a bestselling suspense-book
author." I know all of these guys.
The key point is NOT that whoever this is sold his book online, it's
that he somehow found some set of customers that thought his book was
unique and valuable. This could be related to some clever marketing he
did, or some unique content, or the fact that he correctly targeted a
specific audience. But it likely has very little to do with the fact
that he sold it online. If the book is good enough to sell 5000 copies
online, I'd be very surprised if it wouldn't sell a lot more than that
in bookstores.
If you look at the history of self-published books, really successful
ones are almost always taken over by commercial publishers, where they
go on to sell orders of magnitude more copies. Mutant Message Down
Under was a recent big example.
Or take my own story: I started selling targetted books via direct
mail, small ads in the backs of magazines, and by direct corporate
sales. I had a $7 million/year business before I discovered bookstores,
or they discovered me. But once I did, sales accelerated hugely, with
many books that had sold 3-4000 copies a year suddenly jumping to
15-20K, and our top books jumping even higher, with one (the Whole
Internet User's Guide and Catalog) becoming a million-copy bestseller.
Similarly, if anyone does *really* well selling a book on the web, I'd
be extremely surprised if they don't either end up subsequently selling
the book to another publisher, or following the trajectory I did, and
discovering all those other channels that at first were ignored. After
all, if you can sell 5000 copies on the web, why not sell another 20,000
in bookstores? I guarantee you that a book that has sold 5000
copies/year on the web will get the attention of the bookstore buyers,
just as mine did. Bookstores found me; I didn't find them (at least in
the beginning), starting with specialty bookshops like Computer
Literacy, Quantum and SoftPro. Then in 1992, Carla at Borders
discovered us; we were her secret for a while, but then Ingram and
Barnes and Noble caught on. At that point, we started to hire some
retail sales people, and do more of what other publishers did.
We've tried to keep doing what we did originally as well, with lots of
emphasis on direct and corporate sales. But we would have been silly to
ignore the channel that now represents about 60% of our business.
All that being said, if we'd tried at the outset to sell our books
through retail, we would never have gotten a foot in the door. So
selling on the web (which is a form of selling direct to consumer, as is
the direct-mail and direct-response advertising that O'Reilly originally
did) is a great starting point for a would-be self-publisher. It allows
you to target a market that publishers and bookstores are still not
aware of, or that is sufficiently specific that customers don't think to
look in the bookstore for a title. But you still have to target the
market.
As a good source of additional data points, I know a number of
authors who have set up web sites to sell books they've written that are
still in print, but largely ignored by their publishers. Some sell the
books directly themselves, others through associates programs with
Amazon, Computer Literacy or other online bookstores. Those of you
using these Associates programs can ask yourselves how many books you're
selling, and if you could live on that. Some people (Edward Tufte comes
to mind) are doing hugely well by that channel; Amazon has led to a huge
resurgence in sales of his books. But I'd guess that the average author
who's trying to sell his or her existing books online is selling a few
dozen a month. So if you want to experiment, you don't have to do it
with your next new book: try figuring out how to sell and market one of
your existing books online, and see how you do.
Early experiences are dangerous to judge by. Even if it's possible
to sell a book today, it doesn't mean you will be able to do so
tomorrow. As marketplaces become more crowded, the dynamics change
radically. When the web first took off, it was easy to make a splash.
At O'Reilly, we created GNN (Global Network Navigator), the first
commercial web site; it was easy to make our mark on a shoestring. As
the web was discovered, the ante went WAY up, and we decided to sell out
(rather than put the company in play by going public), because we could
no longer afford to play at the current stakes. All of a sudden, it
cost tens of millions of dollars a year to get and maintain visibility.
Success tends to breed imitation. Once it does, McGilton's law (which
I've quoted before on this list) kicks back in: "First, Fabulous, or
F***ed." (Actually, in a really hot market, it's probably more like
"First, Fabulous, and very deep-pocketed, or F***ed.")
In short, I think self-publishing and selling via the web are really
worth exploring for would-be authors. But don't think that some lousy
book that you crank out in a hurry is going to make your fortune. Even
more than with books put through normal publishing channels, you need to
have the right product at the right time, and stick with it until you
find your customers.
So it's the same advice that you'll always hear from me: write books
that serve a real audience and meet real needs--and that means writing
books on subjects that aren't already exhaustively covered, or about to
be by the time your book comes out--and you have a unique opportunity to
succeed. To actually capitalize on that opportunity, of course, you
have to know your audience and how to reach them, and keep at it until
they start telling each other about your product. (That's the classic
definition of a market: a group of customers who reference *each other*
when making buying decisions. That's what you ultimately need to
succeed as a publisher, not some magic bullet. Figure out what it will
take to get people saying "This is the book you've got to have.") In
the end, the web is just another channel. All the rest of what goes
into a successful publishing business stays the same.
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