Godin to no longer publish books | Hacker News Reader

Godin to no longer publish books

mediabistro.com

50 pointsaik16 comments

If I can recommend a link for context: jakonrath.blogspot.com I spent two hours reading about this author switching from print to ebooks (primarily fiction on Kindle) and how it changed his life. He gets it like nobody in that business I know, and I think he is good reading for many here.

Anyhow, Godin has been doing non-traditional things with his books for forever. He gets marketing (one would hope, right) and brings a dedicated group of followers to anything he does, even the bad ideas like Squidoo. I am at a loss to name anything a publisher gives him of comparable value to what he gives a publisher.

I've read from several sources that ebooks are currently 8.5% of the total book market. By the end of the year, they may be over 10%.

I wonder if those are US or global numbers? One downside of going Kindle only is that you've basically killed any chance of selling books outside the US.

You do realise that Canada, the UK and most of western Europe have Kindles and iPads too right... we're not backwards!

The offering here in Europe is abysmal though. iBooks is just guthenberg (in NL at least) and most kindle ebooks go for between 10 and 20 euro. 20 euro for an ebook. So actually, there is some room for improvement ;)

Although we don't have major publishers signed up (they're welcome!) work uploaded to http://fifobooks.com is immediately available world wide.

> One downside of going Kindle only is that you've basically killed any chance of selling books outside the US.

Not to mention that unless you're selling .mobi files through your own store you also kill your chances of selling to anyone who understands DRM.

The original announcement: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/08/moving-on.ht...

On one hand, you do need to remember that Godin is not your average writer. He already has a huge following, a very popular blog, and he specializes in creating buzz.

Having said that, this is great news and I suspect (like in music) we will see more authors cut out the (middle man) publishers.

I'm pretty glad that he's going to stop putting out books that state every thing from the TED videos and nothing from his own experiences. But I don't think he's going to stop telling people to stop working hard.

I think there needs to be a more one of book publishing model.

Where I can get the ebook...read it...then if it's something truly valuable, I can spend $10-20-30 to have it printed as an actual hardcover book and shipped to my house.

I know there is on demand publishing now...but most of it is just so cheap. There needs to be a more premium solution where you get something you'd actually feel good with putting on a bookshelf.

Personally I think the only reason to publish traditionally is to get on all of the bestseller lists...which help drive more sales.

I would very much like it to be the other way around. If I buy a dead-tree book, give me the ebook along with it.

I like reading books for their bookiness and the way I can quickly reference them by walking up to my bookcase and pulling one out. However, if I want to read on the go, I don't want to drag along a big hardcover book when my iPhone is perfectly capable.

That's got to be one of the most unflattering pictures of him I've ever seen. Looks like something that crawled out of 70's Star Trek episode.

I get it why he does it, he is a marketing machine all by himself and effectively does not need the publishing industry anymore, whose role has been reduced to pure marketing now that distribution has been completely disintermediated.

>Looks like something that crawled out of 70's Star Trek episode.

My first thought when I saw that picture was: "He looks like a Ferengi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferengi).

He looks exactly like an "olmec" in the cartoon "The Mysterious cities of Gold".

http://thumbnails.hulu.com/18/915/93693_512x288_generated__6...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold

Godin's "new dynamics of book publishing" talk from several months back makes for great listening, even for non-publishers: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/files/publishinggodinkeynote-1.... [MP3]

There is a God

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