Has the poster who thinks it costs $2 to make a CD looked at recording studio prices lately?
That was me! And it was quite late, so I probably should have explained better: back when CDs were first out, they cost, what, $15 or so, and the explanation was, oh, they're soooooo expensive to make and burn and package; the production costs, that is, were a massive proportion of the final cost. But over the past twenty years, the production costs have plummeted as technology has improved, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that the actual CD itself is at most $2, including label printing & whatnot -- yet the prices have steadily gone up, up, up.
IOW, the increase in production efficiency did not translate into a significant decrease in price. Come to think of it, the combination of drop in cost plus increase in profit didn't really translate into a significant increase in the artist profits, either. Hmmmm.
(Music industry? Oh, no, I am not at all happy with the music industry, but that's for another post!)
I suppose we're heading for the time when authors *must* publish opening chapters on the Web to see if their books will garner enough interest to be worth printing...
Can't see it ever being worth much. It's like surveying before you open a new business. Sure, eighty people say they'd come to your coffee shop, but people are very quick to agree when a) you're standing right in front of them and b) they're not actually required to put anything on the line, it being hypothetical. I personally wouldn't put much stock in that kind of online vague polling setup.
On the other hand, publishing as an industry is so byzantine and mysterious in its ways that I have to admit: who knows!
But it more commonly refers to the notion that a few big blockbusters sell a LOT and the long tail is all those small titles that sell vanishingly small amounts, but that together add up to a big chunk of underserved market.
*sigh* I was under the impression (and the comments around here reinforced it) that long-tail referred to a single person's work, I suppose with their 'backlist' being their long tail -- while I think of it as businessperson, in much more the way you described. That type of use was causing "I don't get it!"s, so I tried to sidestep with a better visual analogy.
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Date: 11 Jan 2009 05:03 pm (UTC)That was me! And it was quite late, so I probably should have explained better: back when CDs were first out, they cost, what, $15 or so, and the explanation was, oh, they're soooooo expensive to make and burn and package; the production costs, that is, were a massive proportion of the final cost. But over the past twenty years, the production costs have plummeted as technology has improved, and I seem to recall reading somewhere that the actual CD itself is at most $2, including label printing & whatnot -- yet the prices have steadily gone up, up, up.
IOW, the increase in production efficiency did not translate into a significant decrease in price. Come to think of it, the combination of drop in cost plus increase in profit didn't really translate into a significant increase in the artist profits, either. Hmmmm.
(Music industry? Oh, no, I am not at all happy with the music industry, but that's for another post!)
I suppose we're heading for the time when authors *must* publish opening chapters on the Web to see if their books will garner enough interest to be worth printing...
Can't see it ever being worth much. It's like surveying before you open a new business. Sure, eighty people say they'd come to your coffee shop, but people are very quick to agree when a) you're standing right in front of them and b) they're not actually required to put anything on the line, it being hypothetical. I personally wouldn't put much stock in that kind of online vague polling setup.
On the other hand, publishing as an industry is so byzantine and mysterious in its ways that I have to admit: who knows!
But it more commonly refers to the notion that a few big blockbusters sell a LOT and the long tail is all those small titles that sell vanishingly small amounts, but that together add up to a big chunk of underserved market.
*sigh* I was under the impression (and the comments around here reinforced it) that long-tail referred to a single person's work, I suppose with their 'backlist' being their long tail -- while I think of it as businessperson, in much more the way you described. That type of use was causing "I don't get it!"s, so I tried to sidestep with a better visual analogy.
But I also just really like lizards, too.