As I suggested in the last post, publishers have played the role of gatekeeper in the book industry. They filter millions of potential books (in the form of manuscripts) down to ones that they stake their reputations (brands) on. There are other filters in the book publishing eco-system: agents, brick-and-mortar bookstores (they can’t stock all titles), and probably others. They filter down all the potential books to provide a specific set of options for consumers to choose from, and stake their reputation on making the right choices. Large retailers (Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart) stock their shelves with products primarily from traditional publishers because they’ve demonstrated their ability to successfully filter; their ability to choose winners mitigates risk for stores.
In addition to those institutional filters, consumers employ personal filters – the way they go from all available book choices down to the ones they purchase or consider purchasing. There are many types of personal filters: a specific genre (“I only read sci-fi”), books reviews (or perhaps a specific reviewer), specific authors, recommendations from friends, the book jacket (if browsing at a store), online recommendations (“if you like Life of Pi, you might also like…”), and so on.
Bowkers PubTrack Consumer (a monthly survey of 3,000 consumers regarding their reading and book buying habits), confirms the strength of the institutional filter: More than three times as many people become aware of a book because of a store display than through a recommendaton from another person. The data does provide insight into personal filters, too; as reasons for purchasing a book, readers said:
- Recommendations, 5%
- Character/series, 7%
- Adding to collection, 8%
- Type of book, 8%
- Topic/subject, 17%
- Author, 17%
As their own filters make publishers’ reputations, personal filters affect people’s reputations as readers or book selectors. When a consumer decides that she is not getting good recommendations from a friend, she’ll look to different sources. When a reader is disappointed by an author, loses interest in a topic, or whatever, he’ll reshape his filters—and recommend different books to his friends.
Note that I’m not addressing the creation portion of the book, that is, the work of the author; nor the fulfillment side (purchase transaction, delivery [print or electronic]). I’m not including these in the discussion because I believe there will always be authors creating content, and if anything they are increasing their power in the equation. And much has been written about the fulfillment side (everything from the influence of Amazon or Google, to POD, and the never-ending discussion of print versus ebooks). Frankly, I see the filter discussion – and the connection of authors to readers – as much more interesting, and less predictable.
So, combined, institutional filters and personal filters are the current mechanism for sorting all of the book content that could be available, down to the book that a consumer will take to the beach on their summer vacation. An important characteristic of how these two filters work is that they both have their “book recommendation reputations” at stake each time they endorse a book – the choices they make have an impact on the long-term success of the filter itself.
