Questions About Books and Reading That Are Impossible to Answer, But That I Want Anyway.
Last month, I laid out what I thought were the 10 most interesting questions in the world of books and reading. Those are all, mostly, going to be answered by time.
But there are other things I want to know about the art form, business, and life pursuit that really cannot be answered–for reasons legal, practicable, and ontological.
Here are questions I would love to know the answer to, along with a little about why I would like to know them and what my best guess at an answer is. We took on these same questions on in a recent episode of the Book Riot podcast, where Rebecca Schinksy and I wrestled with them at some length if that sounds interested to you as well.
In no meaningful order:
What percent of books that get bought get read? Same for borrowed? And how does that compare for audiobooks and ebooks?
Why I Want to Know: Curiosity mainly. I don’t know that it would tell us anything other than the actual number of something we all know happens: not all books that are bought or borrowed get read.
Best Guess: Around 10-15% of money on gift cards go unused, with 6% of giftcards never being used at all (the difference in numbers presumably is that people will use a giftcard, but not drain it). I assume that for bought books it is something higher than that. I might say something higher on both accounts for books: the percentage of acquired books read all the way through is considerably lower than for those started at all. I also guess that more library checkouts go unread simply because they don’t stick around in the house as long and their is less endowment effect, because cash wasn’t paid out for them.
What percent of a buying decision is based on feeling like you should read it?
Why I Want to Know: I know many people think they should read more, better, just somehow different than they actually do. But how does that affect what they actually read?
Best Guess: Maybe quite a bit? 20%? Higher?
If Penguin Random House opened its own chain of bookstores, would it work?
Why I Want to Know: I asked this question before the B&N turnaround, as the industry was looking for real retail alternatives to Amazon. PRH, with its deep pockets and massive catalog, might have both reason and ability to have physical retail locations. In my imagining, they would carry a full bookstore-line and not just PRH titles, but would of course both favor their own books for display and also get super interesting data (and a cut!) around other titles.
Best Guess: B&N might be too strong now for this to be interesting. But I do think there is room for another premium bookstore chain in the U.S. Could it work? Sure. Would it? Would be tough.
If Stephen King decided he was going to sell is books everywhere BUT amazon, how much would his sales go down?
Why I Want to Know: Just how much of a choke-hold does Amazon have? If people HAD to go somewhere else to get a book they wanted, would they? Is Amazon a bookstore or really more of a book shipper?
Best Guess: If Amazon has 60% of print sales, that would be the worse case loss. I also don’t think King, or another mega-selling author, would retain 100%. I will split the difference and say they would lose 30% of print sales. And much more on audio and ebook, where Amazon, believe it or not, is even more dominant.
How much is Spotify paying for audiobooks?
Why I Want to Know: Spotify is doing well with audiobooks, at least if you judge by how much money publishers are getting. And I have been told they are quite pleased. Is it a sustainable number? Or is the money so good because the envelope being padded to get the thing cooking.
Best Guess: I think Spotify is paying more than they can afford on a unit by unit basis as they get customer used to audiobooks. This will either result in price increases for customers or revenue cuts to publisher. Or both.
What books are selling and where?
Why I Want to Know: Because knowing what books are selling matters! NPD BookScan has the best data, but it is expensive, for an observer like me, to access reasonably. And public dissemination of this information, even if you are paying for it, isn’t allowed. And I get that: collecting all that info is very hard. No problem with that from me. Just wish it were otherwise
Best Guess: No idea. Much more backlist than we think. That’s all I’ve got.
What is the median sales bump from different “hits”? NYT cover review, Reese pick, BOTM selection, Book riotR best books of the year, major and minor prizes, etc.
Why I Want to Know: Should we pay more or less attention to these things? How much of book buying is influenced or not by them? The answer would matter.
Best Guess: Fewer than editors and authors would hope. More than zero. You see the problem.
If there were 40% fewer books published each year, would that be “better?”
Why I Want to Know: So many authors don’t make much money and so many workers in the industry are underpaid and/or overworked that we just might be making too many of these things. Publishing fewer would of course mean fewer authors get their book in the world and readers have fewer choices. But would those realities be offset by better quality of books, life, working conditions, and on-going health of people who work in the industry?
Best Guess: Maybe? 40% is arbitrary, but I would bet on a less is more truth year of some kind.
Will an LLM ever be able to fool me when it comes to literacy fiction?
Why I Want to Know: This should be obvious.
Best Guess: No. I don’t think an LLM will be able to produce a book length work of literary fiction that I would readily mistake for being written by a person. Now, if someone starts with an LLM document and then works from there, probably could happen already. But that difference is all.
What is it going to take for the top of the bestseller list to roughly match U.S. demographics?
Why I Want to Know: This matters in so many ways. Artistically, politically, economically, and morally.
Best Guess: I don’t know. It will probably take elections like the current one being something other than a straight coin-toss, I know that.
How much does library usage really impact sales?
Why I Want to Know: If it does help sales, than publishers should be lowering prices and making access easier. If it hurts, then maybe a different conversation, or at least understanding, could be had.
Best Guess: I think it matters for nurturing life-long readers at an early age. Beyond that, I find it hard to believe that every 100 checkouts of Intermezzo leads to more than another 20 sales or so, and even that feels high. But who knows!
What will be the net effect of the surge of book bans?
Why I Want to Know: Because these seem extremely damaging and knowing the exact amount I think would be persuasive.
Best Guess: In ten years I expect all reading-related metrics to be down: book sales, time spent reading, test scores, literacy rates, all of it. I hope I am wrong.
Is reading books all that good for you? Marginal value over other similar kinds of activities. If so, where is there diminishing returns
Why I Want to Know: If more reading makes me better, than I should do more. If there is a point of diminishing returns, I can turn to other areas of myself that could be improved. Like say, any of them.
Best Guess: There is a point of diminishing returns, and it is lower than the most ardent book-advocates among us think. Probably something like exercise. Some studies suggest that you get a lot of bank for your long walk and the like.
On the podcast we discuss a few more, which I will leave you with as enticement to give the show a try:
What kinds of recommendations work best? Oh you like this this thing try Y thing? Or picking just the books you are most enthusiastic about and blanket recommending them.
What is a books marketing budget? What is a publisher’s total commitment to a title?
What % of any given book that I read do I just not get/miss/misunderstand?
What authors did we just miss as a culture (Herman Melville example). Put another way, if we ran back culture like a Monte Carlo simulation, what other authors would be considered greats? Which regularly fall by the wayside?
The comments section is moderated according to our community guidelines. Please check them out so we can maintain a safe and supportive community of readers!
Leave a comment
Become an All Access member to add comments