3 ms·

Well, sure, but you're picking largely from a pool that these publishing imprints has created. There are going to be many more books to choose from (well, there

by cwyers 12y ago

Well, sure, but you're picking largely from a pool that these publishing imprints has created. There are going to be many more books to choose from (well, there already are, but as long as the publishing industry limps along we don't notice it as much as we will once it's done being "distrupted" by Amazon et al). We have a precedent for what happens when a glut of content without much intermediation gets dumped into a marketplace -- the video game crash of 1983. This is not to say that will or is likely to happen here. But it illustrates what CAN happen to the marketplace. And I don't think reading reviews in their current state is going to scale as the number of books grows.

WalterBright 12y ago
It scales already - it's crowdsourced. I don't agree at all the doom and gloom about the book industry. I suspect we're actually entering a golden age of publishing. Before Amazon, I was stuck with pretty much whatever the local bookstore happened to stock, or whatever randomly appeared in a used bookstore. There were no rankings, no reviews to read. I'd read a book even if it was crummy, because there wasn't much else. Now I can check Amazon, Goodreads, examine lists by my favorite authors, look for titles in sub-genres like post-apocalyptic fiction, look at curated lists by people I trust, etc. I'm not stuck with reading bad books anymore. Getting an out-of-print book is no longer any problem. The barriers for any person wanting to publish their own book have pretty much all gone away. Sure, that implies mountains of dreck will be published, just like there are millions of crappy web sites. But the good ones still float to the top.
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  "The barriers for any person wanting to publish their own book have pretty much all gone away. Sure, that implies mountains of dreck will be published, just like there are millions of crappy web sites. But the good ones still float to the top." This implies that all books require the same amount of capital to produce. This is clearly not true. Post apocalyptic, vampires from space novelette written in spare time is now easier to publish, but long-research, expensive production value works need to be funded some how. If they aren't subsidized by the publishers, who will they be subsidized by?
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    > If they aren't subsidized by the publishers, who will they be subsidized by? The same plethora of ways complex software gets developed.
    - kasey_junk 12y ago
      I would argue that most complex software is subsidized the same way books are. That is, the occasional block buster subsidizes the rest.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Before Amazon, I was stuck with pretty much whatever the local bookstore happened to stock, or whatever randomly appeared in a used bookstore. There were no rankings, no reviews to read. There were, in fact, rankings and reviews of books before Amazon. It was also quite possible to discover books -- and order them -- when your local bookstore didn't stock them.
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    That's true. After all, back in the 1980's I could just google for those reviews!
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Or, more realistically, you could: 1) Be part of a network of people who shared their own reviews, or 2) Consume one of the many wide-circulation publications that carried curated reviews from known reviewers.
      - jasode 12y ago
        For the average person, that was only a realistic scenario for bestsellers (Joy of Cooking, The Shining, etc). For all the less common long tail[1] books, there was nothing comparable to the internet + amazon.com. Maybe some discussion of book readings/reviews on dialup USENET forums before amazon.com but again, that's a channel that only computer enthusiasts bothered with. All the C/C++ books I read were simply the ones that happened to be on the shelf at WaldenBooks, Bookstop, Borders, B&N. Even the hardcore magazines of C/C++ Users Journal or C++Report would review maybe 1 book an issue. amazon.com has expanded my exposure to long tail books more than ten-fold. There was no comparable dissemination of worthy book reading ideas before it. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
      - WalterBright 12y ago
        I come from a family of bibliophiles. Been there, done that, and much, much more. And I throw that all under the bus in favor of the internet for discovering new books and finding reviews, without hesitation or reservation. I'd even search old microfilmed newspaper archives. Bah.

by cwyers 12y ago

WalterBright 12y ago

It scales already - it's crowdsourced. I don't agree at all the doom and gloom about the book industry. I suspect we're actually entering a golden age of publishing. Before Amazon, I was stuck with pretty much whatever the local bookstore happened to stock, or whatever randomly appeared in a used bookstore. There were no rankings, no reviews to read. I'd read a book even if it was crummy, because there wasn't much else. Now I can check Amazon, Goodreads, examine lists by my favorite authors, look for titles in sub-genres like post-apocalyptic fiction, look at curated lists by people I trust, etc. I'm not stuck with reading bad books anymore. Getting an out-of-print book is no longer any problem. The barriers for any person wanting to publish their own book have pretty much all gone away. Sure, that implies mountains of dreck will be published, just like there are millions of crappy web sites. But the good ones still float to the top.

kasey_junk 12y ago
"The barriers for any person wanting to publish their own book have pretty much all gone away. Sure, that implies mountains of dreck will be published, just like there are millions of crappy web sites. But the good ones still float to the top." This implies that all books require the same amount of capital to produce. This is clearly not true. Post apocalyptic, vampires from space novelette written in spare time is now easier to publish, but long-research, expensive production value works need to be funded some how. If they aren't subsidized by the publishers, who will they be subsidized by?
- WalterBright 12y ago
  > If they aren't subsidized by the publishers, who will they be subsidized by? The same plethora of ways complex software gets developed.
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    I would argue that most complex software is subsidized the same way books are. That is, the occasional block buster subsidizes the rest.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Before Amazon, I was stuck with pretty much whatever the local bookstore happened to stock, or whatever randomly appeared in a used bookstore. There were no rankings, no reviews to read. There were, in fact, rankings and reviews of books before Amazon. It was also quite possible to discover books -- and order them -- when your local bookstore didn't stock them.
- WalterBright 12y ago
  That's true. After all, back in the 1980's I could just google for those reviews!
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Or, more realistically, you could: 1) Be part of a network of people who shared their own reviews, or 2) Consume one of the many wide-circulation publications that carried curated reviews from known reviewers.
    - jasode 12y ago
      For the average person, that was only a realistic scenario for bestsellers (Joy of Cooking, The Shining, etc). For all the less common long tail[1] books, there was nothing comparable to the internet + amazon.com. Maybe some discussion of book readings/reviews on dialup USENET forums before amazon.com but again, that's a channel that only computer enthusiasts bothered with. All the C/C++ books I read were simply the ones that happened to be on the shelf at WaldenBooks, Bookstop, Borders, B&N. Even the hardcore magazines of C/C++ Users Journal or C++Report would review maybe 1 book an issue. amazon.com has expanded my exposure to long tail books more than ten-fold. There was no comparable dissemination of worthy book reading ideas before it. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail
    - WalterBright 12y ago
      I come from a family of bibliophiles. Been there, done that, and much, much more. And I throw that all under the bus in favor of the internet for discovering new books and finding reviews, without hesitation or reservation. I'd even search old microfilmed newspaper archives. Bah.