If
you look at the entertainment industry, you realize how often mistakes are made
in deciding which content should get green-lighted, from movies, television
shows, and music albums to toys, books, and theater. So what does it mean if the so-called experts
– the book publishers, big movie houses, and giant record labels -- stink at
predicting commercial success?
The
lesson learned should be that plenty of things that get released to the
marketplace fail for any number of reasons – misreads of consumers, simply too
much competition, the product wasn’t as good as the concept, something changed
in society from the time a project was approved to when it came out, the people
making decisions didn’t do their due diligence or shouldn’t even be in the
positions they are in.
Additionally,
many projects fail to get green-lighted for any number of reasons, including
the fact that some in the position of making decisions don’t really know anything,
are prejudiced, lack metrics to make good decisions, guessed wrong, approved of
something that later turned out differently, or lack the intelligence, taste,
experience, and acumen to properly make such important choices.
How
many books never got published because a few editors or literary agents lacked
the ability to see the talent in front of them?
How many movie scripts or Broadway plays failed to get purchased only
because a handful of decision-makers unfairly judged others by irrelevant
standards?
Are
we really seeing the best movies, plays and TV fare that could exist? Are we actually reading the best books that
can be written? Is the music we listen
to inferior to what could be produced?
I
guess we’ll never know.
The
good news is that more and more people, because of crowdfunding, lower entry
costs, self-publishing, sponsors, and the Internet can get the project done. Any half-decent idea or
concept can be turned into a play – movie – book – TV show – music album and
have an opportunity to get exposure. But
this creates a new problem – a flooding of free and inexpensive content that
leaves consumers exhausted in trying to figure out what to consume, not to
mention getting consumption-fatigue once choices are made on what to read, see,
or listen to.
Everyone
is a creative artist or writer. Is
anyone a consumer? So much content is
out there. The gate-keeper issue may be
waning, but the issue of competition heats up.
Whereas in the past, others narrowed down what consumers chose from, now
we have so much choice that we can’t fathom nor properly assess all of these
choices.
It’s
like struggling to make a lot of money and then suddenly, once you are flush
with cash, there’s nothing left to buy.
Or it’s like being hungry and in a room full of food but not having a
key to open the door to get the food.
We’re so close to creating nirvana for creative people but we’re drowning
in all of these creations.
If
the answer is not “bring back the gatekeepers,” it should be “bring back the
news media.”
We
need qualified people to inform us of the books that are worthy of our
attention. Amazon book reviews, author
blog posts, or celebrity tweets aren’t enough.
Traditional media reviews too few books.
Even if a reliable source were to review 3,000 books a year (60/week),
that reflects only less than 1% of what traditional publishers release in a
year. Self-publishing and POD may even
publish double that.
Only
when we create some type of master system, where every single book is
catalogued, reviewed by a singular standard, and made available to everyone
will we have a fair, useful, and ethical system. Until then, we’re only as informed as the
books we know exist, let alone have time to read.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2016 ©.
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