No Rest for the BISG: Book Industry Study Group’s annual meeting highlights the achievements of a busy year.
Guest Speaker Highlights
Several guest speakers took the stage, including Anita Alberse, associate professor at Harvard University Business School, who outlined the results of her research to explore the validity of author Chris Anderson’s “long-tail” business theory, which suggests that the tail of sales-distribution is getting longer and fatter due to online sales channels (meaning blockbuster products—whether movies, books, music, etc.—will make up less of a market’s overall sales compared to the lengthening “tail” of niche products that are now easier for people to find). Alberse said her research supports the theory that the “tail” is getting longer (meaning that more niche books are selling now than ever before), but she has found no evidence that the tail is getting fatter. Rather, “the average sales for those titles are getting lower and lower,” she said.