[glotta]

Small publishers should play more of a role in filtering out the books.  For example ZOVA books has a good group of authors it represents.  Reviews will also play a larger role in what books sell, and lastly the sample chapters decide if I buy the book.
Gwen

 

[Ciareader]

Readers.

 

[Atunah]

I'm surprised (and pleased) to see how many readers in this thread genuinely seem interested in buying from particular publishers (including indie publishers).

I'm in the process of building one of those now, and while it's my intention to make sure we've got an industry-standard editing process and a marketing department making sure books get sorted into proper categories, I didn't really expect readers to pay a lot of attention to the little label at the bottom of the spine.

I've been talking up the micro-reviewers because that's the way I thought the audience would naturally lean, but if readers are really willing to stick with favorite publishing houses, I can see a great future there.

In my opinion its different with ebooks then paper books. I have learned a lot over the 2.5 years I have had my Kindle. If I see publishers that supply the kind of ebooks I like, and they offer them for a price I personally find reasonable for the format they are, then I will keep looking in that direction.

When I first got my Kindle, there were many, many low cost books, from all kinds of publishers. That was of course before the Agency model. I don't see those low costs books anymore from those and so I have shifted most of my purchasing. I found by looking at the Books in the lists I was searching at and started writing down the publishers names on a list.

Those books are almost always lower then the paper version, which for me personally it should be, and they are consistent. I even signed up for newsletters from those publishers with target specific mails on new releases and such.

Even smaller indy publishers, like you are planning to do can create a brand loyalty and a trust with readers. If they trust the quality of books published under your publishing house they come back for other offerings.

I am lucky to have found publishers that have many of the kind of books I love reading.
I have noticed those specific ones are really taking advantage right now with offering free or low priced books here and there. I just read a book by an author, finished and today the 2nd book happens to be free . Lucky me. That publisher, Kensington, has really popped up on my radar with ebooks. They are doing it right and swooping in where the big 6 are screwing up.

I don't recall paying that much attention to publishers in the past with paperbooks, but I never paid full price either and was always going for the deals. Now the big 6 took that away from ebooks. And they did that to ebooks only. Still baffles my mind.

 

[GBear]

Atunah, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I haven't started learning about and keeping an eye on small publishers as a filter for finding good books, but that's a great idea. I agree that I'm not willing to invest a substantial increase in my time to researching books that are of acceptable reading quality. For those who say "readers" or "the market" will be the new filter, the problem is not only that the cost of putting a book "on the market" is now very low, but there is no real reason for even very bad books to exit the electronic bookstores and stop "cluttering the shelves."

So I look forward to the evolution of these new gatekeepers, in whatever form they take (as long as it's not the agency model!).

 

[DanG]

For those who say "readers" or "the market" will be the new filter, the problem is not only that the cost of putting a book "on the market" is now very low, but there is no real reason for even very bad books to exit the electronic bookstores and stop "cluttering the shelves."

So I look forward to the evolution of these new gatekeepers, in whatever form they take (as long as it's not the agency model!).

Bingo to the "cluttering the shelves" and bingo to the new gatekeepers. I'm definately interested to find a good reviewer that reads enough in my favorite genres to be a reliable recommender for me.

 

[Amanda Brice]

The way I have always filtered out which books to read.

Word of mouth and reviews

 

[Beatriz]

Unfortunately, I am reading more and more how people will only review if they have a positive review to share, they state they will not leave anything negative. This makes it harder and harder to weed out the bad as it gets harder and harder to trust the reviews. I prefer Goodreads lately for reviews, not always quite as glowing, but more honest in my opinion.

speaking of Goodreads, I just put my book there and I was wondering what else do I have to do in Good reads to promote it? Putting it there was fairly easy and notices went out to my friends, but how else do we promote there?

Talking about reviews they do help but ultimately the reader has the last word. It's so simple to get a sample on kindle and not to buy the book if we don't like it, so why hurt an author and give negative reviews?

 

[mima]

on any given day a reader types a search or clicks on "others also bought" and happens to feel like reading your excerpt. that search looks different day to day. so i'm of the jaded opinion that mostly readers find a book they're satisfied with through sheer luck. ads and reviews don't really cut through the deluge. it's reader X happening upon their exact match that matters.

the issue then becomes: when you find that rare reader, you have to have written such an incredible book they will look you up and/or remember you. every. single. time. talent is what will last, but all the talent in the world won't matter if the book never lands in front of the right readership.

 

[purplepen79]

I've always sampled books before I buy them--I can usually tell in a few paragraphs whether a particular style is going to appeal to me enough to keep reading.  Whether a book is published by a big house, a small press, or the author really has no bearing on its quality as far as I'm concerned--I've read some wonderful self-published books and started some terrible books called "the latest thing" by the publishing industry.  All the publishing industry stamp of approval means that some editor somewhere thought that a particular book could be a commercial success--that has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with someone else's opinion, which may not reflect my opinion at all.  So I've always sampled first and will continue to do so.

 

[Joseph Robert Lewis]

The way I have always filtered out which books to read.

Word of mouth and reviews

Same for me. I've never really spent much time reading official announcements or professional reviews. I just like to browse and search and gobble up anything that grabs my attention.

 

[Jon Olson]

It will likely be filtered in pretty much the ways most of us at KB are already using: ratings/reviews at e-retailers like Amazon, bloggers who we find have similar tastes to ours, forums like KB, and online social media. In other words, thousands of readers will be helping to filter for other readers, as opposed to a few editors and marketers at a few publishing companies.

This makes sense. I guess I wonder who thinks publishers are not putting out cr*p right now?

 

[EchelonPress]

The publishers don't publish "good" books, they publish books that they think are marketable.

This may be true for some publishers, but the statement is far too general. I for one, as a publisher, have been known to kick marketing potential to the curb, and go with a great story.

--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread.

 

[Amy Corwin]

This may be true for some publishers, but the statement is far too general. I for one, as a publisher, have been known to kick marketing potential to the curb, and go with a great story. If you go up a few notes you will see one from Gayle Carline. I LOVED her story. It was clever, it was quirky, it was fun, but I think she will agree with me when I say that it is not the easiest book to market because it doesn't fall into any of the marketing holes.

It is an awesome book and I don't regret my decision one bit.

I believe readers are perfectly capable of deciding what to buy, what interests them, etc. They will have no problem separating the books they want to read from the noise because they can read the samples, for one thing, before they buy.

I know that I've had to give up entire genres that I liked because publishers destroyed them by only buying certain things within that genre. I'll give you an example. I used to love historical romances, but recently, publishers will only produce books that are mostly a series of bedroom scenes loosely chained together with a weak plot. I'm not interested in those, but that's all publishers are producing.

So that genre is dead for me, now. I don't even go into the romance aisle anymore at the bookstore.

That's just one example.

Thank heavens, now, for indie authors and small press who may "take a chance" on a book that is not what the traditional publishers are looking for at the moment. While there may be fewer readers, there are readers for them, even if we're on the fringe.

I will admit it's hard to find the books because there are so many. That's very true and I know there are gems I'm missing because I don't have the time to wade through 65,000 pages to find the books in the middle that I might like. But I do occassionally find them and I'm grateful when I do.

The one thing I wish we could have was some sort of rating system so that when I do a search within a genre, I can exclude books with heavy sexual content (as an example). That might reduce the pages down to maybe 3,000 out of 65,000 . But I know Amazon gets criticized up and down as it is and that would probably be just one more thing that they'd get criticized for. Sometimes, you can't win for trying.

 

[Mainak Dhar]

It'll be a wonderful thing called a free market- and the consumer (reader) will vote with their wallet and time- without big brothers/sisters in publishing houses vetting what people can read or not. But for that to happen, much more of the market would need to shift to ebooks.

 

[simonlogan]

For the time being I think that store reviews, be it on Amazon, Smashwords or wherever, are going to be a big influence as they are right there when you are browsing the books you are interested in.  There are so many titles being released via KDP etc but a far lower percentage are getting any reviews whatsoever so you are left with your gut instinct unless you have recc's from other sources - so to me, at least for just now, getting as many good reviews on the actual site which sell the products is the best thing.

I also think that social media is going to play a larger and larger role, be it Twitter, Facebook or blogs and this is a reflection of the shift of control from major publishing houses to authors - instead of the NY Times reviews it's all going to be about who is in your social network.  Which books will succeed and grow depends upon the requirements and interests of those discussing it so I can see lots of niche markets expanding.  Publishers NEED to sell lots and lots of copies to cover their costs and make a profit but with direct publishing you don't need to have that so stranger, odd little books can get more of a foothold.

Ultimately it's readers who decide but that's how it's always been.  Publishers might choose to publish Author A but if readers hate it then all the marketing in the world won't save it and Author A will struggle to be published again.  Readers (or buyers, however you choose to see them) always have, and always will have, the control.

 

[Jamie Case]

Not it.

 

[Starry Eve]

Other than selecting genre and typing in a few keywords, aren't there ways to program in more advanced filters for readers to narrow down the thousands of books and ebooks that might interest them? Good word of mouth seems to be the best marketing tool, but luck still plays a large part for that particular book to get to those particular readers who are likely to spread that good word around.

 

[blurbshop.com]

I'd have to agree with the consensus here and say that readers will be the filter. However, now that book pricing and distribution is undergoing a disruption I'm more inclined to take a chance on someone I've never heard of before. If i don't like the material, I don't buy anymore titles from that author. I'll consider a review if the person writing it up provides a cogent opinion that resonates with me. Also, my genre preferences will shade my filter as well.
What I think you cannot rely on is sales volume. Many people new to the ebook phenomenon will buy a low priced title (sight unseen) just out of curiosity (could it really be as good as a traditionally published book?). This will artificially drive up the sales volume of authors already at the top who offer the .99/2.99/4.99 price point and that's just the up and pull of marketing.

My .02

--- edited... no self-promotion outside the Book Bazaar forum. please read our Forum Decorum thread.

 

[Aaron Pogue]

Other than selecting genre and typing in a few keywords, aren't there ways to program in more advanced filters for readers to narrow down the thousands of books and ebooks that might interest them?

They're working on it. And by "they," I mean...well, mostly grad students in Computer Science programs.

But there's a strong demand for something like Pandora's Music Genome Project, for books. It's challenging, because there's so much cultural nuance to written language (and it changes so fast), but we should see something in the next ten years.

It'll be fascinating to see what happens next -- what a program like that could do to writing. We're talking here about indie publishing taking the deciding power away from publishers' marketing departments, but when there's a Pandora's Books...it could plug right into Word (just like the spelling and grammar checkers), and tell you, "If you published this book as-is, we would recommend it to 2,000 readers. If you added more explicit sexual content (just to borrow an example from Amy above), we would recommend it to 200,000 readers."

 

[Jamie Case]

They're working on it. And by "they," I mean...well, mostly grad students in Computer Science programs.

But there's a strong demand for something like Pandora's Music Genome Project, for books. It's challenging, because there's so much cultural nuance to written language (and it changes so fast), but we should see something in the next ten years.

It'll be fascinating to see what happens next -- what a program like that could do to writing. We're talking here about indie publishing taking the deciding power away from publishers' marketing departments, but when there's a Pandora's Books...it could plug right into Word (just like the spelling and grammar checkers), and tell you, "If you published this book as-is, we would recommend it to 2,000 readers. If you added more explicit sexual content (just to borrow an example from Amy above), we would recommend it to 200,000 readers."

A Pandora for books could be a reality today. Nuance of the language has little to do with it.

Pandora uses people to categorize their music (coolest job ever btw) and then when a user likes a song the database spits out other songs that their musicologists have tagged as having similar attributes. Using that model, Google could create a Pandora for books in a few months, but just trying to get all the books they could into their database landed them in hot water time and time again over the past few years. Licensing is very different in music than it is in literature.