The key question here, is whether (and if so, to what degree) free download is a more effective means of distribution than regular book sales. So we should ask Peter Singer how the consumption of TLYCS changed with putting his book online.
Free distribution seems to have helped a lot. The original version sold ~45,000 copies in its first 10 years; in its first 6 months, we’ve distributed roughly the same number of copies of the 10th anniversary edition.
The original edition has presumably had more readers than the updated version so far: over 10 years you can rack up a lot of library checkouts and used book readings that aren’t captured in the sales numbers, and people are more likely to consume a book if they’ve paid for it than if they got it for free. But based on the first 6 months, I’d expect the new edition to be read many more times over the long term, and for that to be driven by it being freely available. (I’d also expect factors like promotion by the celebrity narrators of the audiobook to increase distribution.)
Nice. We could check how many actually read the book by noting whether the book accumulated Goodreads ratings more quickly after the 10-year anniversary—especially once another 1-2 years have passed.
I took a look at the Goodreads data. Unfortunately it’s pretty messy and I don’t think it’ll be much help in understanding the popularity of the new book. Goodreads does distinguish between the different editions, but it’s clear from reading the reviews that some people are reviewing the old book but talking about the new one. And the interface won’t let me see total reviews across all copies by year, so we can’t see if that number has spiked.
Looking past the Goodreads data, I think it’s safe to say that the launch of the new edition was a success. TLYCS is on a much improved growth trajectory (including moving a record $18.2 million in 2020), new donors are telling us that they found us through the book (more so than prior to the relaunch), other organizations like GWWC are also seeing improvements they can trace to the book, etc. Some of this is discussed in TLYCS’s 2020 annual report, which just came out.
Of course some of this impact is because we released a new book, but I’m very confident that it helped a lot to make it free. It’s hard to believe that some people contributing impact weren’t enticed by the free offer and/or would have been put off by a financial cost. “Read this book” is an easier pitch than “buy this book.”
Owning the rights also gives us a lot of flexibility we wouldn’t have if we went the normal publishing route. We can do whatever we want in terms of cutting up the content into pieces to distribute via various channels, we can do translations on our own schedule, making future updates/additions to the ebook, etc.
My take is that owning the rights to foundational books or other IP has a lot of potential for EA. And for anyone considering this I’d say the earlier you figure out that you’ll be giving the book away for free the better, as you’ll need to have a distribution plan and may want to shape some of the content accordingly.
As it happens, I did a quick-and-dirty version of this analysis yesterday—see this spreadsheet. It looks to me like Goodreads is actually helpfully aggregating ratings/reviews across editions (if you click on any one of the editions here, it shows you the same figures), and the rate at which the aggregate numbers have been going up seems to have increased meaningfully since the relaunch, which does seem to provide additional (encouraging!) evidence regarding its impact.
Good idea, but one issue with donating books to a library is that the librarian still has to decide whether to accept or reject the donation. Most librarians are very selective about what gets included and what gets weeded out of their collection.
Another option is to use the library website and find the “Suggest items for the library” web form. (Search the library catalogue first to see whether the library already holds the item.) If the librarian decides to purchase the book, it is completely funded by the library budget.
You can suggest the format too: print, ebook or both. I would say both because both print and ebook formats have their respective strengths and limitations.
For university libraries, if you mention the course or unit (e.g. ethics, philosophy) that would benefit from the book, it helps the librarian to justify the purchase.
Thanks for doing this, hadn’t thought to use the Wayback machine. Really cool to see the quantitative perspective line up with our qualitative impressions!
One way to do the analysis is to record the number of reviews on different dates using different snapshots in webarchive; my guess is that this is what Matt was doing with his analysis. (EDIT: Just saw that Bastian already did this)
One solution might be to offer the books with a heavy discount. Historically, I’m much more likely to read a book if it pops up on my kindle like this: 10€ 0.99€, compared to books that are given away for free.
It’s important to note, however, that there would likely be a ton of variation for different books. This would likely depend on what the publisher paid the author in advance and how many books they’ve sold / how much money they’ve made back.
It’s important to note, however, that there would likely be a ton of variation for different books. This would likely depend on what the publisher paid the author in advance and how many books they’ve sold / how much money they’ve made back.
Presumably most of that is sunk cost and what the publisher ought to care about is discounted expected cashflows from the book.
Presumably most of that is sunk cost and what the publisher ought to care about is discounted expected cashflows from the book.
I think that’s conceptually right. But it brings up another important point: negotiating to buy the rights was time-consuming and frustrating. And part of the annoyance was due to the publisher not acting as economically rational as you’d expect. We actually spent years saying things like “surely there’s a figure for which you’d be happy to sell the rights, could you just let us know what that number is?” There really wasn’t any progress until we got a (pro bono) lawyer involved who has a lot of experience in IP negotiations. Once she took over working with the publisher, things started moving along (though still at a relatively slow pace).
Free distribution seems to have helped a lot. The original version sold ~45,000 copies in its first 10 years; in its first 6 months, we’ve distributed roughly the same number of copies of the 10th anniversary edition.
The original edition has presumably had more readers than the updated version so far: over 10 years you can rack up a lot of library checkouts and used book readings that aren’t captured in the sales numbers, and people are more likely to consume a book if they’ve paid for it than if they got it for free. But based on the first 6 months, I’d expect the new edition to be read many more times over the long term, and for that to be driven by it being freely available. (I’d also expect factors like promotion by the celebrity narrators of the audiobook to increase distribution.)
Nice. We could check how many actually read the book by noting whether the book accumulated Goodreads ratings more quickly after the 10-year anniversary—especially once another 1-2 years have passed.
Good idea! Just set myself a reminder to look at this a year from now :)
I’d be very interested in seeing this analysis!
I took a look at the Goodreads data. Unfortunately it’s pretty messy and I don’t think it’ll be much help in understanding the popularity of the new book. Goodreads does distinguish between the different editions, but it’s clear from reading the reviews that some people are reviewing the old book but talking about the new one. And the interface won’t let me see total reviews across all copies by year, so we can’t see if that number has spiked.
Looking past the Goodreads data, I think it’s safe to say that the launch of the new edition was a success. TLYCS is on a much improved growth trajectory (including moving a record $18.2 million in 2020), new donors are telling us that they found us through the book (more so than prior to the relaunch), other organizations like GWWC are also seeing improvements they can trace to the book, etc. Some of this is discussed in TLYCS’s 2020 annual report, which just came out.
Of course some of this impact is because we released a new book, but I’m very confident that it helped a lot to make it free. It’s hard to believe that some people contributing impact weren’t enticed by the free offer and/or would have been put off by a financial cost. “Read this book” is an easier pitch than “buy this book.”
Owning the rights also gives us a lot of flexibility we wouldn’t have if we went the normal publishing route. We can do whatever we want in terms of cutting up the content into pieces to distribute via various channels, we can do translations on our own schedule, making future updates/additions to the ebook, etc.
My take is that owning the rights to foundational books or other IP has a lot of potential for EA. And for anyone considering this I’d say the earlier you figure out that you’ll be giving the book away for free the better, as you’ll need to have a distribution plan and may want to shape some of the content accordingly.
As it happens, I did a quick-and-dirty version of this analysis yesterday—see this spreadsheet. It looks to me like Goodreads is actually helpfully aggregating ratings/reviews across editions (if you click on any one of the editions here, it shows you the same figures), and the rate at which the aggregate numbers have been going up seems to have increased meaningfully since the relaunch, which does seem to provide additional (encouraging!) evidence regarding its impact.
Nice, so we should buy the rights to all the other EA books...
A related idea would be to buy copies of e.g. the precipice for university libraries...
Good idea, but one issue with donating books to a library is that the librarian still has to decide whether to accept or reject the donation. Most librarians are very selective about what gets included and what gets weeded out of their collection.
Another option is to use the library website and find the “Suggest items for the library” web form. (Search the library catalogue first to see whether the library already holds the item.) If the librarian decides to purchase the book, it is completely funded by the library budget.
You can suggest the format too: print, ebook or both. I would say both because both print and ebook formats have their respective strengths and limitations.
For university libraries, if you mention the course or unit (e.g. ethics, philosophy) that would benefit from the book, it helps the librarian to justify the purchase.
Thanks for doing this, hadn’t thought to use the Wayback machine. Really cool to see the quantitative perspective line up with our qualitative impressions!
You can get more granular data on the number of ratings (but not reviews) from this page.
One way to do the analysis is to record the number of reviews on different dates using different snapshots in webarchive; my guess is that this is what Matt was doing with his analysis. (EDIT: Just saw that Bastian already did this)
It’s worth remembering though that when people who paid for the book are much more likely to have read it
One solution might be to offer the books with a heavy discount. Historically, I’m much more likely to read a book if it pops up on my kindle like this:
10€0.99€, compared to books that are given away for free.Also, are you able to disclose the cost of buying those rights?
Not sure, I’ll check with the team and get back to you.
The book rights cost $30,000 to acquire.
It’s important to note, however, that there would likely be a ton of variation for different books. This would likely depend on what the publisher paid the author in advance and how many books they’ve sold / how much money they’ve made back.
Thank you for this datapoint!
Presumably most of that is sunk cost and what the publisher ought to care about is discounted expected cashflows from the book.
I think that’s conceptually right. But it brings up another important point: negotiating to buy the rights was time-consuming and frustrating. And part of the annoyance was due to the publisher not acting as economically rational as you’d expect. We actually spent years saying things like “surely there’s a figure for which you’d be happy to sell the rights, could you just let us know what that number is?” There really wasn’t any progress until we got a (pro bono) lawyer involved who has a lot of experience in IP negotiations. Once she took over working with the publisher, things started moving along (though still at a relatively slow pace).
This is very helpful data; thank you!
To your knowledge, has Singer ever considered doing the same for any of his other books?
I don’t think Singer has considered doing this for other books, but I’m not positive about that.