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Digital Literature: How the Web has impacted the publishing world
- 1. Digital Literature: How the Web has impacted the publishing world Andy Lau
- 2. The Rise of E-Books Source: Timetoast
- 3. A Marketing Perspective Source: Creative Guerilla Marketing
- 4. Online vs Offline Source: Authorearnings.com
- 5. A Sociology Perspective Sociology Society ConnectionsCommunity Source: Seeklogo
- 6. Marketing and Sociology Marketing Sociology - Quantitative - Targeted audience - Qualitative - Ethnographical - Social media - Evidence based - Analytical
- 7. Conclusion As the Web has grown, so too has potential marketing schemes. Social media can be a huge component in the success of published books. The advancement of the Web has also created the e-book format: one which can potentially impede on the sales of print books. By synthesising the disciplines of marketing and sociology it could allow future research into just how much online reviews by consumers can affect sales of a particular literary work.
- 8. References Authorearnings.com. (2014). Print vs. Digital Report – Author Earnings. [online] Available at: http://authorearnings.com/report/print-vs-digital-report/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2017]. Bingham, H. (2015). Why Authors Walk Away From Big 5 Publishers. [online] Jane Friedman. Available at: https://www.janefriedman.com/walk-away-good-big-5-publishers/ [Accessed 23 Nov. 2017]. Bournie, D., Eang, B., Sirbu, M., Waelbroeck, P. (2012). Superstars and Outsiders in Online Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Electronic Books. [online] Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1967426 [Accessed 26/10/2017]. Dellarocas, C. (2003). The digitization of word of mouth: Promise and challenges of online feedback mechanisms. Management Science, volume 49, pp. 1407-1424. Favreau, A. (2015). Amazon Earnings for Self-Published Authors are Growing, Report Says. [online] The Write Life. Available at: https://thewritelife.com/amazon-earnings-for-self-published-authors/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2017]. Pan, B., & Crotts, J. (2012). Theoretical models of social media, marketing implications, and future research directions. In: Sigala, M., Christou, E., & Gretzel, U. (Eds.). Social Media in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality: Theory, Practice and Cases. Surrey, UK: Ashgate, pp. 73-86. Vahagn, S. A., & Haemoon O. (2008). Psychological Ownership Theory: An Exploratory Application in the Restaurant Industry. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Volume 32 (3), pp. 363-386.
Editor's Notes
- Electronic books (e-books) started its rise to popularity in the 2000s, however the idea of it started back in the latter half of the 90s. With the improvements of technology it became possible for texts to be published on CDs, the first of which was the Academic American Encyclopedia, re-named ‘The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia’ in 1985. While the CD technically has a text in a digital form, the first to create the e-book format was Michael Hart, who founded Project Gutenberg in 1971: a volunteer-run digital library dedicated to digitalising and archiving cultural works. However, this was all done with texts that already existed. With this in mind, I chose to investigate how the rise of electronic books have affected the publishing space through both a marketing perspective and a sociology perspective. How has the Web aided or hindered the publication process in the literary world?
- In looking at this issue from a marketing point of view, it offers a view of statistical sales values of e-books compared to print books, and how they differ on a site like Amazon which makes both forms available to consumers. However, it isn’t solely about the numbers, as it also looks at how a campaign might be marketed in a certain way to attract the most customers. In regards to publishing, marketing can offer an insight into the sales trends of print books before and after the introduction and increase of people purchasing and reading e-books.
- From a marketing perspective, e-books have been steadily increasing in sales as technology like e-readers have become more readily available to consumers. One of the top online retailers for books is Amazon, who offers both print and digital books. When looking at sales trends it is easy to see that by offering a digital space for easy publishing, independent publishers have much more of a traction compared to books published by the Big Five publishing companies. However, is it possible to find out how these figures have been affected by social media, or generally just campaigning on the Web? These models have been taken from the Top-100 Best Selling lists of Amazon and BookScan, which can readily show a straight comparison between figures. The model on the right was taken over 23-months, allowing for trend lines to be visible.
- With the increase in social media campaigns for marketing products, it can lead into a look into sociology. How do social connections play a role in the publishing industry? When everyone can be part of multiple communities, it becomes easy for the traditional word of mouth process to occur, oftentimes in multiple spaces at once with technology such as social media. This leads to the success of a book very much having a dependence on the social aspect, where the official reviews may not necessarily be the top priority for readers, but what their peers think of a book can sway their decision on whether they purchase it or not.
- It is possible to view the issue of e-books in a publication space from a marketing and sociology perspective. The issue that solely print books can have is that with an offline marketing scheme, it would cost a lot to print out posters and other advertising methods whereas with the rise of social media, it is easy to quickly share new books, reviews of books, and advertise not only through posters but through maybe an online community. In addition to that, when all is said and done the author tends to receive a higher percentage of the royalties when publishing independently in an e-book format. This presents the author with multiple choices when deciding how to publish their work: going with a publishing company, or publishing independently as an e-book. However, as the Web has advanced, social media campaigning has become a lot more common, with targeted ads appearing influenced by a user’s browsing history, as well as general spreading of information about various books that users may have read.
- This synthesis of disciplines would enable more specific parameters of marketing to be identified, such as to what extent can social media affect the sales of a book in either e-book or print format? By applying the Psychological Ownership Theory, it could be possible to see how much reviewers can influence a published work through their reviews to other potential consumers. By obtaining a certain amount of positive and negative reviews, and contrast them against a trend line of sales numbers over a number of years, it can become possible to see a potential impact on sales through positive and negative reviews. This could also aid future market researchers when discovering how to best market their own products, as with the advancement of the Web there are increasingly more avenues to be thought of when marketing towards an audience.