Gawker has the goods on blog readers and the blogger-authors -- and worse, editors who have contracts to blogger-authors -- they wind up disappointing.
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The Truth Hurts
23 May 2008 11:41 am
Comments (38)
It seems like you could get some of the bigger circle. If you don't read books, then you don't read books, and it is going to be tough to get you to think otherwise.
But just because you don't read blogs doesn't mean you won't come across a book in the bookstore and find it interesting, or hear an interview with the author on NPR and decide to check it out.
So I think you can totally capture a little piece of the bigger circle outside the medium sized circle.
Good luck on that.
Matt, you want to sell books?
Some free advice: Don't eat for six months, dye your hair blonde, put on a silly cocktail dress, and write a book with a title calling liberals traitors, scum, stupid or some combination of the three.
Dammit... now you tell us!!
One data point:
I can think of only one book that I've bought by a blogger after first encountering them as a blogger (one of Tyler Cowen's books, fwiw). I can think of a handful more books that I have bought after reading about them on an unaffiliated blog.
There are a few factors missing here. One is that I suspect the majority of people who read blogs get their news online and are, therefore, cheap bastards like myself, and get their books at the library.
Second is that a good blogger does not always equal a good, or desirable book author. I do want to read HITS, but even though I visit Feministing pretty regularly I have no interest in reading anything book-length by Jessica Valenti.
Third, a blog generally covers a wide variety of subjects, and a book is generally focused on one topic. People who like Matt on basketball and skip the foreign policy posts will not buy HITS.
This diagram suggests that a lot of readers of blogs don't read book. How confident are we in saying that?
For what it's worth, I tried to buy your book but can't find the freaking thing in either borders and barnes and noble.
Also, there's a fundamental problem here isomuch as people either buy books for the content, or the cover. You're not famous enough for option B, and your target market--blog readers--kinda already knows what you're going to say. I mean, I've probably read a dozen books worth of blog posts of yours while just dicking around at the office and avoiding work, so "Matt's opinions on foreign politics and domestic policy" isn't a scarce good. Maybe write an NBA book with the basketballprospectus guys or something; flesh out a niche interest
Let me say this even though it's not classy at all: Matt has written this excellent blog for many years. Obviously he has derived some career benefit from it over the years and now earns a living just writing the thing.
But we have benefited from it without cost for YEARS. If you don't buy his book, frankly I don't think you have any business here.
Plus, the book is really good!
I read blogs, and I reasd books, but I buy my books used on Amazon. Except for when somebody buys me a gift card. And besides, I mostly read books on religion.
In answer to a couple of comments above, I'm a blog reader, and I don't read books.
I will probably make an exception for Heads in the Sand, although I've been telling myself that for awhile and haven't picked up the book yet.
The Venn diagram cannot be right. There must be some people who bought the book but don't read blogs.
Having said that, is the implication of your post that HITS sales are below projections?
1. Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?
2. There aren't any comments in the book, which is 1/2 the value of most blogs
3. The milk wasn't that good to begin with, I'm in the market for a better cow.
What Jim W said. I think it's sad that someone who tried to correct a faulty Venn diagram would produce one that is also incorrect. Part of the people who read books written by bloggers circle should lie outside of the people who read blogs circle, but within the people who read books circle.
Another Gawker commenter absurdly tried to claim, in response to the "corrected" Venn diagram Matt reproduces here, that the people who read books written by bloggers circle should partly or fully lie outside the people who read books circle.
Some people should not be allowed to handle the sharp utensils of logic—perhaps most or all of the class of people known as "Gawker commenters".
Bunch of reasons why bloggers don't easily make the transition to successful authors:
-Bloggers tend to be much better at writing pithy ephemera than they are at longer forms.
-Blogs don't cost anything to read, and getting someone to pay $10-$20 for the blogger's work is a huge leap.
-Why should people buy the cow when they're getting the milk for free every day?
Matt, it's cute how you're trying to make your inability to sell books into a failure of the system.
Alternatively, you could just write better books.
Blogger books tend to be series of long blog posts, one running into the next.
Like that Sex and Cocoa Puffs book, but without any humor value.
Guns, Germs, and Steel, blogger books ain't.
I've been reading your blog daily for over 2+ years and bought the book out of loyalty. I enjoyed the book, but found myself impatiently skimming through parts of it (maybe because I've heard the arguments on the blog). I agree with some commenters earlier who said that this book would have been better off coming out a year or so ago.
For what it's worth, my father, who's never read your blog, enjoyed the book quite a bit and bought a copy for one of his friends.
This chart may be more accurate for people who watch videos - people who read blogs - and people who watch bloggers on videos
The basic problem here is that people (including me) are not willing to actually pay money to read your insights. Frankly I come here more for the commentators than anything else.
This model does not adequately explain the public's apparently substantial appetite Jonah Goldberg's mind droppings.
Matt's book is good, Korha, and you should read it. To put on my contrarian hat, Matt's better long form than he is as a blogger. I think it gives hims an opportunity to actually build the arguments rather than just be short, snarky, and pithy. But that belief might be because I have grown considerably more disenchanted with blogs after the last year or so.
I second the Jessica Valenti statement. Full Front Feminism was just terrible. Superficial and dull. And this is coming from someone who thought that most of the racial and intersectionality driven criticisms of the book weren't particularly convincing.
"This model does not adequately explain the public's apparently substantial appetite Jonah Goldberg's mind droppings."
I assumed Jonah's mom arranged to have the numbers inflated. Or that there were just piles of his books purchased at a trade discount sitting around her house.
I'd been waiting for HITS to come out in kindle format for a while, but I finally broke down and bought it in hardcover. It is good, everyone should read it.
Can't find it in the chain bookstores? No problem, Amazon got it to me in 2 days.
I think that figure's about right. It's not surprising, really. You read a blog for breadth - to keep bascially aware of what's going on in the news on multiple topics. You read a book for depth. Therefore a lot of people reading blogs are people who either don't have the time or the inclination to pursue a deep reading of the literature on any given topic. If I did know everything there was to know about, say, urban planning or foreign policy, I'd probably read this blog a lot less often, since it wouldn't have much to tell me that I wasn't keeping apprised of myself. (That's the reason I don't pay much attention to your occasional comic-blogging).
So yes, I think it is a structural feature, if not failure, of the system, pm. I really do intend to read your book, Matt, when I have the time. But I imagine that's the way a lot of your readers feel, hence the problem. I think it may translate into slower, but more sustained sales.
i'm still waiting because i would like the honor of being the one to purchase the 1000th book sold.
How many blog readers read books in Pyongyang, North Korea, Matt?
I picked that place for a reason, you know.
So, Matt, I guess your sales really have tanked, haven't they?
Publisher asked for their advance back, have they?
A-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w...
This thread made me feel guilty, so when I passed the local Borders while running some errands an hour ago, I stopped in and picked up the lone copy on the bottom shelf (just where Matt said it would be... tough luck on that alphabet thing, guy.)
Anyone who hasn't joined the fan club or read Heads in the Sand needs to do both.
I suggest the pen name Ygs Aardvark for your next tome.
Alternatively, you could just write better books.
How would that help sales? Anyone who knows whether or not the book is good has already read it.
Anyone who knows whether or not the book is good has already read it.
Good point. Perhaps, if you'd titled it Liberal Bushism or worked neo-nazi imagery into the cover art. . .
Anyway, I bought it. I like it!
Matt: "'Alternatively, you could just write better books.' How would that help sales? Anyone who knows whether or not the book is good has already read it."
What part of "word of mouth" don't you understand, Matt?
Hyping your book on your blog isn't quite enough to get people to buy it. They need to be persuaded by the people who DID buy it.
Clearly, that didn't happen.
Why? Because like I said, the book was too little too late. It came in after twenty other books on Iraq and Bush's screwed up foreign policy by people with bigger names and better credentials (a degree in philosophy from Harvard? Is that on the book jacket bio? Really?) than you.
Try again in five years - after you've been RIGHT on Iran - IF you ARE right.
Well I'm definitely going to outsell the people with good credentials (I don't think you understand how the book business works) it's the Jonah Goldbergs of the world who are kicking my ass.
"(a degree in philosophy from Harvard? Is that on the book jacket bio? Really?)"
It's not on the book jacket of the copy I just bought today. Where'd you get the idea that it was?
Incidentally, I do have to criticize whoever chose the back cover blurbs. An inside joke (Ezra's "serious, thoughtful argument" riff) as the top blurb -- WTF?
The next two (EJ Dionne and Fred Kaplan) lead by referring to Matt as a blogger, rather than anything about the book -- was this considered some kind of killer marketing angle?
The fourth and final blurb (Hendrik Hertzberg) begins with the phrase, "Reading foreign policy tomes is seldom included among life's pleasures..." Given that whoever is reading the blurb without having bought the book yet has probably just picked it up while browsing in the foreign-policy section, this doesn't seem like a wise inclusion.
Meanwhile, the best sentence (blurb-wise) on the page -- "Heads in the Sand is not just a razor-sharp analysis (etc.)..." -- is buried in the middle of the last blurb. It should have been pulled out and put at the top of the page.
My guess is that if you do the numbers a bit more circumspectly, the chart would be inaccurate for political books such as HITS.
I assume the universe of book readers in Gawker's chart includes readers of casual books like romance novels and "Chicken Soup for the Soul," and the universe of blog readers includes those who read mostly their friends' blogs, gossip blogs, etc. If, instead, you used readers of political blogs and readers of political books, I suspect the overlap would be much greater--and better news for Matt.
So, Matt, you should commission this research and get it to your publisher pronto before you ink your next book contract.
Hey Matty, I'm fucking proud of you for coming in this thread and responding. Hack is of course, a fool, but its enjoyable watching him being toyed with.
HITS is great by the way
Matt: "Well I'm definitely going to outsell the people with good credentials (I don't think you understand how the book business works) it's the Jonah Goldbergs of the world who are kicking my ass."
Bwahahahahahaha!!! That only makes it worse, doesn't it?
"'(a degree in philosophy from Harvard? Is that on the book jacket bio? Really?)'
It's not on the book jacket of the copy I just bought today. Where'd you get the idea that it was?"
I didn't. That was just an assumption on my part - what else does Matt have to tout as credentials - this blog? Some random op-eds?
BTW, Bend, I'm the one toying with Matt, not the other way around.
Matt only toys with himself, heh, heh.
Comments closed June 06, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
How many blog readers don't read books? I would think it would be pretty close to a subset rather than a venn.
Posted by Anonymous | May 23, 2008 11:52 AM