The Long Tale: Should Publishers Buy into the Long Tail Theory?

In a mere 10 years, the Internet has shaken media industries to the core. Chris Anderson's long tail theory-that the rise of the searchable Web would unleash an enormous pent-up demand for obscure products-was so compelling that our industry sent his book onto the best-seller lists (wikipedia primer on the long tail theory). But a Harvard Business Review article, "Should You Invest in the Long Tail?" by Anita Elberse, began partially debunking Chris Anderson's theory of the long tail last year, replacing it instead with a less optimistic worldview: The Internet is actually entrenching pop culture more deeply, and Anderson's uprising of niche-loving nerds is a myth.

Anderson's theory has inspired smaller publishers that lack blockbuster promotion budgets. The implications of his theory justified the existence of small-to-midsize publishers. If you publish niche content and make it easy to find, readers will come.

To test Anderson's theory, Elberse (an associate professor of business administration) investigated the music and movie markets, two industries that book publishing has watched closely in the post-Napster, BitTorrent era. Analyzing vast amounts of data made available by Rhapsody, Quickflix, and Nielsen VideoScan, she found the following:

• The long tail is composed of a rapidly growing number of products that rarely or never sell. The tail is longer and thinner, not longer and fatter.
• Best-sellers and blockbusters are more important than ever.
• Most consumers choose the most popular products and only occasionally choose obscure products.
• Those consumers who choose obscure products are the heaviest consumers of the category.

Pulling it all together, Elberse's findings appeal to our common sense: Casual readers read best-sellers; serious readers read best-sellers and less popular books. What's more, she reports that both casual and heavy consumers of a category rate obscure content as less enjoyable and popular content as more enjoyable.

The bottom line is that for each book lover who delights in the discovery of obscure, or classic, books, there are millions who have enjoyed best-sellers. It appears that we are social animals and there is no escaping the tyranny of the masses, even on the Internet. In fact, the Internet, contrary to Anderson's theory, is enabling the masses to reign with an ever heavier hand.

Yet some publishers have found ways to exploit both the best-seller and long tail models. At Nolo, located in Berkeley, California, the long tail begins with the printed book. Jackie Thompson, vice president of trade sales, explains that the book is then reformatted for a variety of uses, many of which fit nicely into the long tail.

"Once we have the information for, say, a business book," she says, "we take that same information and post some of it on Nolo.com for our free Nolopedia, which drives search engine optimization and web traffic. Then we submit the book to Amazon Search Inside and Google Print to drive more traffic to Nolo.com. We format the book as an e-book and an audio book and submit those versions for sale and for licensing. Sometimes we create software or online applications to sell online. We've even put a book together knowing it won't break even in the book trade, but that it will generate significantly more revenue in its various parsed formats on Nolo.com."

When asked the difference between investing in the long tail and in a great website, Thompson says, "For Nolo, investing in the long tail is investing in a great consumer website."

Mike Campbell, director of sales and marketing at Graphic Arts Center in Portland, Oregon, is receptive to Elberse's findings. "Books in the long tail are there for a reason," he says. "Instead of trying to sell books that consumers don't like, publishers need to sell more of what's selling well." His advice? "Build on the success of your hot sellers, and don't try to give equal treatment to long tail books or you'll just confuse your customers."

There has been some great irony to Elberse's findings. Chris Anderson has since posed another theory (Wired, July 2008). Mining massive amounts of data for correlations will replace the testing of hypotheses. Elberse did just that, disproving his long tail theory. Now that Anderson's book is safely off the best-seller lists, perhaps his own book sales will also prove him wrong.

Elberse's findings show us a world in which the best-seller is an increasingly important marketing tool. What does this mean for smaller publishers in 2009 and going forward?

For your general list:

• If you don't have one, invest in a low-cost website. There is no tail at all for publishers without web sales or sales through Amazon.
• Lead your niche. Indie publishers often can't compete at the blockbuster game. If you can't win at mass appeal, then be the best at what you do.
• Divert resources from books with limited appeal and focus on creating best-sellers.

For best-sellers:

• Promote best-selling books to the broadest possible market.
• Match the promotion to appeal: Books with mass appeal should get as much promotional support as possible (and vice versa).
• Lead with your best-sellers. Elberse cites the heavily discounted seventh Harry Potter book as an example.

For long-tail books:

• Spend as little as possible on products with little appeal or low sales. (POD, anyone?)
• Promote books with the narrowest appeal to only the heaviest users of that content.
• Make your long tail books more easily found by the heaviest consumer at the lowest cost possible. or example, line-list less popular books in your catalog, but keep them online.
• Leverage the popularity of your best-sellers by cross-promotion. Think like Amazon and use website cross-sells ("You might also be interested in . . .").
• Bundling best-sellers with less popular books ("Buy X, Get Y") can stimulate long tail sales. Revive old best-sellers in this way.

"Should You Invest in the Long Tail?" by Anita Elberse is available for free online viewing at the Harvard Business Review website. Chris Anderson responds to the article on his blog at longtail.com.

Dave Trendler is Marketing and Publicity Manager at VeloPress, an endurance sports and fitness publisher. To see Dave's previous EndSheet contributions, click here.

Friends Make Molehills Out of Mountains

Here's a scientific study that's near and dear to my heart. The Journal of Experimental Psychology published a study "Social support and the perception of graphical slant" which confirms something all backpackers and hikers have known intuitively: climbing any hill seems easier with old friends.

From the New York Times article "What Are Friends For?":

"Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone. The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared."

Perhaps this is why we seem more likely to get ourselves into trouble when friends are around!

Health News Roundup

Having Many Friends Is Good for Your Physical and Mental Health
In a 2006 study of cancer survivors, "proximity and the amount of contact with a friend wasn’t associated with survival. Just having friends was protective."

Fructoses Raises Your Bad Cholesterol and Triglycerides
"The researchers found that those study participants consuming fructose beverages had significantly increased blood levels of triglycerides and [bad cholesterol] compared to those consuming drinks sweetened with glucose."

Living Near a Highway Linked to Arthritis
"Researchers found that the women who lived within 55 yards of a large road had a 31 percent increased risk for rheumatoid arthritis compared with those living 220 or more yards away."

Even Skinny People Sporting a Gut Better Watch Out for Their Hearts
"The researchers found that a four-inch increase in waist size was associated with about a 15 percent increase in risk for heart disease, both in people of normal weight with a B.M.I. of 25 and in the obese with a B.M.I. above 30."

The Heart Can Grow Back...But Just a Little Bit
"About 1 percent of the heart muscle cells are replaced every year at age 25, and that rate gradually falls to less than half a percent per year by age 75, concluded a team of researchers."

Women Are Really Good at Smelling Body Odor
"For women, only two [fragrances] worked [to block their ability to smell] female odor, and none worked to hide male odor."

Breast-Feeding Benefits a Mother's Health
"Most doctors agree that breast-feeding is best for babies’ health. Now a large study suggests that the practice benefits mothers as well: women who have breast-fed, it says, are at lower risk than mothers who have not for developing high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease decades later, when they are in menopause."

The Nation's Backyard Is Now Bigger and Wilder

On March 30, President Obama signed into law a bill that designates 2 million acres of land as wilderness.

Wilderness designation is the highest level of environmental protection the U.S. federal government offers and it is permanent. This bill, which combined over 150 separate bills, took 35 years to become law, and it is the largest amount of land to be designated wilderness since 1994.

The national backyard is now bigger and wilder, but this new wilderness designation has special meaning for Colorado. An eighth of that new acreage is Rocky Mountain National Park (park announcement), which is now 95% wilderness, thanks to the "Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009".

Mark Twain predicted this designation's 35-year delay when he said, "Whiskey is for drinkin', water is for fightin'." The political alignment of Congress and the White House aside, arguments between federal negotiators and Colorado residents about water rights, irrigation ditch maintenance and liability, and wildfire control were part of what prevented these new protections for three decades. Funny that these locals, the very people who should care most about the land, prevented its protection for so long. "All politics is local."

Maintenance and liability for Grand Ditch were among the sore points. Japanese and Mexican workers begin digging the ditch by hand in the 1880s to carry water from west of the Continental Divide east through a mountain pass, to Long Draw Reservoir, into the Cache Le Poudre river, and down to the farms of Fort Collins and north east Colorado. The ditch wasn't completed until 1936. Some friends and I backpacked to the "Ditch Camp" site in northwest RMNP in 2005. The ditch is beneath us:


Where is all this new wilderness?

• California: 700,000 acres in the Sierra and San Gabriel mountains
• Idaho: 517,000 acres in the Canyonlands
• Michigan: 11,700 acres of Lake Superior shoreline
• Colorado: 250,000 acres covering 95% of Rocky Mountain National Park and expanding the Indian Peaks Wilderness
• Wyoming: 1.2 million acres of the "Wyoming Range" moose habitat (I suspect some of this acreage must be part of Colorado's acreage or else the acreage total exceeds 2 million.)
• Other states gaining wilderness: VA, WV, OR, NM, and UT

What does it mean?

All this new wilderness land is officially out of bounds for any activity that might permanently affect the habitat or landscape. This basically means no mining, drilling, logging, or motorized vehicles. Most of Colorado's new wilderness has been managed as wilderness since President Nixon first suggested that RMNP receive protection in the 1970s.

Other resources:

• Local supporters of the bill include Sen. Mark Udall, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Sen. Michael Bennett, Rep. Betsy Markey, former Sen. Wayne Allard, and former Rep. David Skaggs.
• Summary of the Act, as passed and signed into law, including which members of Congress voted for and against the act
• Summary of the full text of the Act
• Wilderness.net: facts and figures about U.S. wilderness

Triathlon Aid Stations Should Supplement, Not Supply

A friend of mine finished yesterday's Ochsner Ironman 70.3 in New Orleans (race coverage). She said the afternoon temperature rose into the 80s.

An Ironman 70.3, or half-Ironman, takes its name from the total distance raced: 1.2 mile swim + 56-mile bike + 13.1 mile run = 70.3 miles.

Is it possible that anyone would be crazy enough not to bring any water?

"There were a number of athletes who came into transition (between the swim and the bike) with no water bottles on their bikes, " race director Bill Burke said. "How athletes come into 70-mile races without any of their own fluids is absolutely amazing."

A Times-Picayune blog post, "Thirsty-somethings: High temperatures leave some unprepared competitors desperate for a drink", discusses the race's dire water situation.

"Those stations are supposed to be supplemental fluids. We went through about 6,500-7,000 bottles of water on the bike alone, " Burke said. "We went through about 7,500 cups of water on the run and 5,000 pounds of ice at the finish and 2,000 pounds of ice in transition. I've never seen it this bad, where hundreds of athletes brought nothing to the race."

Sound familiar? 2007 Chicago Marathon?
Aid stations in any sport are intended to aid, not fully supply, the athlete. If you underestimate your caloric or hydration needs, the aid stations are there to bail you out so you can finish, if not race. No matter what distance you're racing, hydration and nutrition are your responsibility. In fact, so are your core temperature, your ability to recover from a tire puncture or broken chain, etc. Unless your race registration says otherwise, you shouldn't expect that race day will be like a day sightseeing at Disney World or a day of skiing at Beaver Creek (where, I hear, attendants give you warm cookies and tissues).

There are many ways to carry your own water during a triathlon.

On the swim: uh, don't drink the water. Especially Lake Pontchartrain. Grody.

On the bike:

• Use your water bottle carriers. Most people accustomed to rides over an hour will have to water bottle cages mounted inside their frame.
• Add a seat-mounted bottle carrier, like this one at TriSports.com:

• Put a water bottle between your aero bars, like this one from Profile Design:

• Fill a CamelBak with cold water to help keep you cool or wear a CamelBak RaceBak:

On the run:

• Wear a Fuel Belt:

• Carry a bottle in hand, like this Hammer Flask:

Few sane people would embark on a half-Ironman without first having gained valuable experience and fitness at the sprint and Olympic distances. Since this was New Orleans's first Ironman-branded triathlon, I'm guessing that the "hundreds of athletes" who raced without water were less experienced triathletes. Were they trying to save a little weight on the bike leg?