This isn’t such a big problem either. The minority that does read books are still huge in absolute terms, and we have more options than ever to read.
The thing is, they aren't competing. Those attracted to addictive visual social entertainment weren't likely to read a book anyways. The type that enjoys both does both, and does not consider one to be a replacement of the other.
But you're right - the only books I ever hear about from a marketing standpoint are the ones my wife is reading for her book club. So either Oprah talked about it, or it's part of the "book club marketing machine" or whatever.
I wish the publishing industry could turn things around. I think the low percentage of people who actively read fiction is ultimately a bad thing. Binge watching Netflix is not the same as binge reading a good book series imo.
> the only books I ever hear about from a marketing standpoint
I'm actually pushing my novel via Taboola at the moment. It's definitively not profitable in terms of sales of a single book, but interestingly in terms of signups to my e-mail list it's one of the best I've found, and I'm spending a tiny amount on it each month on the theory that I'm reaching users who are less jaded and more likely to be outside of the typical bubble I reach on e.g. twitter, and who might well turn out to be worthwhile to be able to repeatedly market to over time in the hope of seeding some word of mouth outside of my normal audience.
Half the fun for me (this is a hobby) is trying to figure out the marketing channels that will work...
However expanding the niche would be a good thing.
Tor? DAW? You talk like no one ever thought of publishing science fiction or fantasy books. It's been going on all along!
Or in simple words, could you clarify here?
I read that book. It's not even supposed to be enjoyable, and it's not really great writing or something that I feel like I need to tell my friends about. Essentially it's stuff you feel like you "should" read rather than you "want" to read. Like vegetables instead of ice cream. The ice cream is the page turning thrillers where some guy is beating up criminals in parking garages and chasing art thieves around the world.
The book industry puts its highest profile promotion on vegetables instead of ice cream.
The industry is constantly marketing to their diminishing demographic instead of trying to figure out how to increase it again.
Talk to non readers to find out their knowledge set of what kind of books are out there. Again, I convert folks all the time. I get zero a year readers to an average of 6 to 10 a year. Mostly because i used to hate reading until i got converted as well. I know the pain points.
Have you got a blog or anything like that?
"I convert folks all the time. I get zero a year readers to an average of 6 to 10 a year. Mostly because i used to hate reading until i got converted as well. I know the pain points."
I used to read 30-ish novels a year, and now it's more like 4. Would love to get back on the horse, I'm sure there are plenty of others. Finding fun books to read is tough.
As for post 2, 3, 4...? I dunno, but I'm on Twitter at atseajournal, and happy to hear about whatever.
Literary books are marketed far heavier than genre. This is the equivalent to arthouse films vs what actually makes money as a movie/show.
Let's take one similar plot. A chemistry teacher is diagnosed with cancer, cant get treated and eventually dies. Literary and arthouse will do a discovery piece on how this person copes with death and cries with their family, then character dies. Genre... the dude builds a meth empire and everything the arthouse did, the genre adds in. Let's be serious about which was really going to be successful and why.
Entertainment is about escaping boring. You fail that, you fail in general. Most book lists are boring people with boring problems doing boring things.
The book industry did this to themselves by shitting on the genre writers. The publisher that does a marketing campaign, "to hell with boring literary books" and pushes mysteries, scifi, cozys, fantasy and others, they'll open up to the demographic that's not "regular readers". Thats about 70% of a population is an untapped market. Most people who dont read on a normal basis have been trained by school and the book media that fun books are "wrong". I have zero sympathy for the book industry in this regard and I'm an avid reader. I've converted more non-readers than any guilt tripping article regarding this problem.