Which book do you reckon boasts the lowest ratio of copies read to copies bought?
My pick has got to be Chris Anderson’s ‘The Long Tail’.
I’ve never met anyone in marketing who doesn’t claim to have a copy kicking about somewhere.
Nor have I met anyone who’s credibly demonstrated that they actually read the thing.
Maybe that’s because its magazine-article-padded-out-to-be-sellable-as-a-book nature makes the art of Long Tail blagging so easy. (”Well it’s about the internet making it possible to sell lots more different things to smaller numbers of people, isn’t it?”)
But maybe it’s time at the top is now over – thanks to the release of Mr. Anderson’s follow-up, ‘Free’.
The premise of this one appears even easier to busk – “the internet is going to make free the dominant economic model“. Done and done.
‘Free’ can also be listened to on Spotify.
But I can’t see it being a big money-spinner for the fledgling service.
Odds on most drop out well before the first ad break…
