Books Are The Souvenir Edition For Your Idea
from the good-quotes dept
We've talked at length about the difference between infinite goods and scarce goods in various areas, and how you should spread the infinite ideas to make the scarce goods more valuable, but here's a great quote that puts that in perspective when it comes to books. Mathew Ingram points us to an interview with entrepreneur and author Seth Godin, where he notes:"Books are souvenirs that hold ideas. Ideas are free. If no one knows about your idea, you fail. If your idea doesn't spread, you fail. If your idea spreads but no one wants to own the souvenir edition, you fail."That's a beautifully succinct way of explaining the entire concept, though I think that the last bit (about getting people to own the souvenir edition) may be changing as well -- and other business models will start to show up.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: books, business models, economics, infinite goods, scarce goods, seth godin, souvenir
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Dead on!
There are many CDs that I have purchased purely so that I can have the album art*! I can most definitely get my hand on the music without a problem, but I want to have that case insert as my souvenir, so I gladly pay for the tangible item.
*And, in some cases, with hope that some of my money goes to the artist, even though I know that's naive...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Infinite, scare, infinite
Unless, of course, the book is published as an ebook, which is suddenly in itself an "infinite" product, which means that its production "cost" was zero, and as such no one now needs to buy or pay for it.
So... now you spread around the infinite idea in order not to sell an infinite product... and hope someone buys the t-shirt as a souvenir.
Got it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Infinite, scare, infinite
There's also the fact that publishing ebooks has typically led to higher sales of the dead tree one (see here for an example), backing up the whole "souvenir" idea.
But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your argument.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Infinite, scare, infinite
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not just a souvenir
I know I could just print out an ebook, but that is so rarely worth the effort - the difference between the printed and the bound version is usually worth the cost.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Where's the Set Godin T-shirt?
While what he says is true, ideas are free, Seth knows that many just can't accept that idea. He knows that Big companies in particular don't readily understand that they can just use an idea. They buy copies of the books for teams. They buy consulting services. And the originator is always the premium brand for these helper services.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Where's the Set Godin T-shirt?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Marketing Ideas
Is there a library card in your wallet?
See you in Ramapo, Seth.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Marketing Ideas
Is there a library card in your wallet?
See you in Ramapo, Seth.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
production costs
Re: "Unless, of course, the book is published as an ebook, which is suddenly in itself an "infinite" product, which means that its production "cost" was zero, and as such no one now needs to buy or pay for it."
There are plenty of production costs beyond the paper, printing and glue. There's copyediting, compositing and conversion into the various ebook forms, not to mention editing and marketing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]