In the commercial world, we are used to thinking of value in the context of price. A “good value” is often defined by some quotient of quality and price, specifically as relatively high quality for a relatively low price. But the value of books, while commercial art and commercially marketed products, is not so easy to define.

A book might be deemed valuable if it’s rare, for example, as a first edition first press, or as out of print. Readers have been conditioned to believe that hardcover books should cost more than paperback books, and that trade paperbacks should cost more than mass market paperbacks – but does the value vary among formats? Students traditionally pay ridiculous amounts for textbooks, even (and sometimes especially) for subjects that hold little value to the student. Tiny hardcover books can cost substantially more than epically long paperbacks, while ebooks vary in price from below mass market prices to double the paperback retail. And then there’s the whole concept of free content, the value of which seems to be tied to future interests. On a superficial level, there seems to be little correspondence between cost, price, and value, with very little talk of actual quality.

So what gives?

Several weeks ago, Don Linn tweeted something that got me thinking about this topic, namely that “Free content is not in readers’ long term interest.” He is specifically “concerned … about creators being paid fairly for work.” Nicholas Carr argues that so much free content online has created a void into which corporations are leaping as they figure out how to profit off this otherwise free content. And, he suggests, because high quality programming costs more to produce, “[i]f the changes in our viewing habits stanch the flow of money back to studios, producing those kinds of programs may no longer be possible. In their place, we’ll get more junk: dopey reality shows, cookie-cutter police dramas, inane gab fests.” Will books suffer the same fate, with corporate publishers peddling increasingly bad content at lower prices, maximizing profits and diminishing the value of individual authors?

I’m guessing that some believe that this may be the case, especially after the announcement this week that Harlequin is partnering with self (or vanity) press, Author Solutions to underwrite a self (or vanity) pubbed line of books. Harlequin was not the first to announce this (Thomas Nelson did the same earlier), nor are they the first publisher to buy an interest in self-publishing. Although authors seem to be more worried about the Harlequin venture, I think the emergence of self-publishing as a potential revenue stream for publishers is only going to get stronger and more prominent. And I suspect that it will feed a nascent fear that the online environment suppresses merit, and ultimately, value.

But as a reader, I am not convinced that this will be the case. I do not think that the democratizing power of the Internet is going to devalue content by creating false equivalencies between “real” books and “fake” books (whatever those definitions may be). Nor do I think readers will eschew paid content for free, regardless of quality. I do believe, though, that value as it resonates with readers and flows back to authors, is a complex combination of factors related to the nature and quality of the reading experience.

Cost does not correspond to quality

Although publishers price books according to length, format, and collectability (e.g. a children’s book with a great deal of art may be more expensive than a long adult paperback), I think many readers judge the quality of a book by its content, and more specifically by how much they enjoyed reading it. From casual to voracious readers, I’ve never seen a reader indicate that a book was good “for the price.” Price may determine whether or where a book is purchased, but it will not determine value to the reader, and value is what shapes a reader’s interest in an author’s future work.

And while many products may appear more valuable the costlier they are, I don’t think this wisdom translates well to books, especially when voracious readers so often take advantage of the library or used/loaned/shared books.

Restricted access drives value down

If authors are concerned about being paid what they’re worth, the first thing they should do, in my opinion, is drop their allegiance to DRM (and their resistance to digital, if that’s relevant). Readers will naturally deem less valuable books they have more limited access to. Which means that the broader copyright protections are, the more narrow readers’ rights become, driving value down. For those of us who are die-hard digital fans, sacrifices may be endured in order to indulge our habit. But those sacrifices come with a price that will reflect detrimentally on the way content is valued: many of us will demand lower prices to compensate for more limited access to books. It won’t matter to us whether publishers or authors set any particular policy or price; we simply won’t pay more for less, and limited access means less.

Books as objects less important than books as content

Moriah Jovan recently suggested that ebooks not even be called books, because “[p]rint books and digital book are two completely different species… the delivery system makes all the difference in the reading experience.” Although I agree with her that publishers and authors need to get past seeing print and digital as competitive formats, I’m not convinced that dropping “book” from “ebook” is the solution.

What I do think is that authors need to strive to write the best books they can, not the most books they can. If you woo us with great books, if you win us, we will read your books, even if they arrive no more often than once a year. Overall, I believe that fewer books published will also increase the value of content, with the added benefit that this reduced pack can be more carefully edited, both at the story level and the spelling/grammar level. I realize that many do not believe that editing matters to readers, but readability does, and anything that compromises that devalues the content. Readers may not be able to articulate the elements of good craft, but solid writing is never wasted.

Competition stimulates demand and investment builds value

I firmly believe that the haste and homogeneity characterizing the current market are far more detrimental to value than free content, especially because free content is merely a remedial measure in an overly-crowded market. The problem is not free content; it’s too much indistinguishable content. We readers can beg for deeper, richer, more diverse books, but if authors won’t write them, we cannot create them out of thin air (merely return to beloved re-reads). We may buy tried and true authors, even if they disappoint, but we won’t branch out if we’ve been burned too many times. The higher the overall quality in the marketplace, the more incentive readers have to experiment, to try something new, to vary and extend their buying patterns.

Nathan Bransford points out that people are being besieged with competing forms of entertainment, and “are deciding what media they want to consume out of a bewildering array of choices, and the ground is constantly shifting.” Yet publishing still seems to follow up robust sales with more of the same. So is it any surprise that digital venues are growing and self-publishing is exponentially expanding? Readers want to be entertained. Period. The worst thing that can happen to books is that readers are more entertained elsewhere. I believe that any book reading is good for content creators, but readers must feel compelled to remain invested in new books, not only in monetary terms, but even more importantly in terms of our loyalty and interest. Because it’s the quality of our overall investment in books that will ultimately shape the value of the books themselves.

So what compels you to remain invested and interested in books?

This entry was posted by Robin on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 6:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.