Something Physical Books Can't Do

Debate can be such a wonderful waste of passion.

A couple months ago I discovered something physical books can't do. Yangsze Choo tweeted out that her debut novel, The Ghost Bride, was on sale for two bucks on the Kindle. Immediately I mentally scrolled through every conversation I'd had about the book, and through every person who'd seemed interested in its premise of a posthumous marriage being realized in Fantasy. Then, I started gifting copies to people. Two bucks per copy of a great novel, delivered instantly over thousands of miles, to people I held dear. It was something physical books have never offered.

Books Vs. eBooks is a wretched argument that won't actually sway consumer practices. People who grew up with physical books and enjoy the feel of pages and smell of paper won't find a substitute in e-readers. Meanwhile, kids growing up with tablets won't have the same attachment. Tablets and phones take less space, are more convenient for traveling, and have more functions than my doorstop copy of the Riverside Chaucer. Both forms have appeals, and the appeals differ between readers. Fighting between loyalists of the two forms is worse than futile, a miserable distraction from the love of reading, and of each other.

The afternoon of instantly gifting Ghost Bride was revelatory. I even signed up for a Barnes & Noble account just to gift a price-matched copy to a friend with a Nook. This was a beautiful new function I'd previously only experienced with digital videogames. Why? Because if a copy of State of Decay was 50% off on Steam, yes I'd want it, but I wouldn't buy it for myself. Meanwhile if a friend was going through a bad break-up and loved zombies? Yes, I'd be very likely to gift the game to him. That's the kind of impulse buyer I am. I don't grab the candy bar through the checkout line for myself, and I'm not alone.

It cemented itself into my heart when one friend IM'd me that she'd torn through the book. She was struggling with clinical depression and hadn't read any book to completion in a year. It was a loss for humanity, because until her problems, she was the absolute best kind of reader, enthusiastic to consume, discuss and share, with broad tastes and minimal cynicism. Health took that from her, and she was thousands of miles away, so I could never be there for her the way you'd want to be for a good friend.

And then, after finishing my two-dollar gift, she was sifting through the digital storefront for more things to read. Screw it, pun intended: her love of reading was reKindled.

I'll still browse bookstores. Yet eBooks appeal partially because my friends are global, and the neighborhood we chat in is the internet. Now I could tweet about my Ghost Bride buying kick, only to have Choo herself give me a personal message to relay my friend whose work she'd loved.

This is more exciting than Amazon's Paper White, or new screen tech that will mimic the texture of low grain paper as you swipe. This is a sharable future that appeals to me as not just a customer, nor as a reader, but as a friend. Cynically, it's a great way to get more money out of people like me. And I'll thank you for the privilege.

Consumed #16: Borderlands 2, Tig Notaro, Homestuck & More

Consumed #16 is live and up for free download this week, sporting our flashy new theme song by The Clark Powell Lounge Band.

This podcast is a crunchy sandwich of content, with a loaf of Borderlands 2 and Homestuck, discussing absurdist SciFi comedy and why even the juvenile still entertains. But the meat in the center are weirder topics, like the exquisite violence of Mark of the Ninja, and Tig Notaro's brave and staggering stand-up comedy about her battle with cancer.

It also includes at least sixty seconds of book talk as I try to explain Tom Holt's Blonde Bombshell.

You can download Consumed Episode # 16 right here.

Paulo Coelho Sells Out (at $0.99)

If you didn’t hear, last week Paulo Coelho and HarperCollins experimented by dropping most of his e-books to $0.99. The sides quickly formed, snarking over whether he’d see 1000% increase in sales. Well, Tech Dirt had the figures. Was it 1000%?

No. It was somewhere between 4,000% and 6,500%.

It was a perfect move for Coelho. It wouldn’t work for everyone. Disagree? Observe the thousands of Kindle authors who can’t move a dozen copies at 99 cents. Rather than a clarion call to dump all pricing, this ought to be regarded as a call to regard how we price.

Coelho is famous, an internationally bestselling author whose works have broad appeal and have won numerous awards. He has millions of fans and Twitter followers. He’s that rare level of author who’s got at least one novel so popular that decades after its release Wal-Mart still wants to carry it. That is a heck of a platform.

You drop his works from $9.99 to $0.99 cents, and sales jump. That makes a lot of sense. Especially right now, where an author doing that becomes a news story, turning the news cycle into an advertising cycle for Coelho. If you’re going to do this, you’ve got to have a broad reach for how to get word out about it. I’ve consoled too many peers whose week-long discounts drew pitiful numbers. Changing price has to correspond with public awareness and desire to work.

One of the only web stores I look at weekly, and I don't even buy many games.

The apt comparison has been made to Valve’s Steam. Valve is a videogame company that created its own marketplace for games from other publishers. You buy Bioshock, you can download it immediately and on any computer you log in on. On most days Valve highlights one title or series at the top of the homepage and discounts it, sometimes dramatically. Around Christmas and July, they run the big Steam Sales discounting plethoras of titles. These deals are one of the big ways Valve has drawn people to download and use the Steam service. Valve now brags it makes more revenue per-employee than Apple or Google.

Amazon has Kindle Daily Deals, but no one in book publishing has done what Steam has yet. HarperCollins could launch the next killer app if every week a different beloved book, series or author’s work was dropped to $0.99 only on its store. We’re not talking emerging authors bidding for audiences. If you know the new J.K. Rowling adult novel is going to be $0.99 this Christmas on Pottermore, you have really good incentive to sign up for the free service.

Such services become their own bastions of advertisement. You have message boards and instant message clients to interact with fellow enthusiasts. Users don’t only peruse the new deals; as it becomes your preferred client, you buy products through it first. Valve notes the spike in sales of a game does not end with the discount period; a year-old game returns to the public mind as new people pick it up and talk about it. And if you're like me, half your purchases come from seeing something a friend would like on sale and "gifting" it to their account, paying to give them a license to download it whenever they want.

Coelho himself doesn’t know when the 99-cent sale will end. It won’t last into perpetuity, and as a less famous author, I thank goodness for that. As feel-good a story as it is, what I’m really excited for is what comes next.