What Long Tail? #
January 6th, 2010 | In Worth Reading
The Economist makes (or made in November) an interesting point: it’s the middle of the road stuff, not the blockbusters, that are suffering a technology marches forward.
A study of the Australian market by Nielsen, a research firm, found that the number of titles bought each year (measured by ISBNs) has risen dramatically, from about 275,000 in 2004 to almost 450,000 in 2007. Niche titles selling fewer than 1,000 copies each accounted for nearly all the growth in variety. Yet their market share fell. In Britain, sales of the ten bestselling books increased from 3.4m to 6m between 1998 and 2008.
(via Marco, who pulled the quote that most likely explains the phenomona)