Hyraxia

I’d like to talk about social networking with a slight glance to the bookselling world.

So, there are four main networks at the moment that are relevant. Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn. Each is unique and each is similar. None have had a remarkable effect on my various areas of business.

Let’s compare the four in terms of connections. For me Google+ is the outstanding winner here, I’ve been on there less than six months and am in 57 people’s circles, 57 people want to hear what I have to say (apparently). I have 80 followers on Twitter and 36 fans on Facebook, I have 17 connections on LinkedIn. Having said that, I’ve never really pushed myself on the various networks, just waiting really.

Of course, connections mean different things on different channels and you’d expect to have more on Twitter where you only post short messages; people have less to consume so can consume more widely. Facebook has traditionally been more intimate, you only have people you know as friends etc. but this is changing and people are subscribing to things they like to hear more about – especially brands. LinkedIn isn’t quite working for me at the moment as I fail to see what it offers over other sites other than the close relationship with profession. It should allow professionals to communicate in a professional manner, but sites like Google+ offer this in a more personal way. Google+ seems to be working at the moment as it’s quite easy to connect to people, though the lack of brand is getting more pertinent by the day. Let’s have a look in detail at each.

Ok, I never really understood Twitter until I used it via Flipboard on my iPad, which automatically traverses links in a tweet and displays the content. It read like a newspaper with people’s thoughts interleaved. Something I never got from the site itself. I never really look at Twitter though as there’s just too much information. I find that using Google Reader is much more productive. Twitter should work well for commerce though, and I usually list my books on there. I’ve never sold anything via Twitter or had much site traffic from it, probably because it gets lost in the torrent of information. Though if I filtered it and it was used by other dealers more often it could be very good. It could be the real-time equivalent of catalogue listings or books-for-sale listings that used to be in the circulars or printed magazines. The book trade really could get on board with this. Imagine for a while that Twitter was used only by booksellers and collectors. I’d tweet that I was looking for a first edition of a book, and dealers could retweet that to their colleagues. I’d tweet that I had a book for sale and a similar pattern of dissemination would occur. Tags could be used to request information. It could be the ultimate distributed communication system, though there’d be a large tendency to allow more noise to filter in simply because of the wider reach.

So in terms of commerce, Facebook is starting to work; I read something recently that 25% of consumer choice at Christmas will be influenced by Facebook, e.g. recommendations, marketing etc. How would the book trade utilise Facebook? Well, in largely the same manner as it would Twitter, only it’s flow is slightly slower and with more detail. You can’t easily process 100 Facebook stories every hour, so you’d be looking for a higher level of specificity with finer detail. The intimacy factor would play a part here to as the people you connect with on Facebook tend to be people that you would communicate in greater depth with. This would be significant for creating repeat business and long-lasting business connections.

Like I said before, LinkedIn should be the network of choice for a business, but it just isn’t working. Part of the issue is that it’s not a commerce platform; there’s no real connection between vendor and consumer. Secondly, you have to ‘cheat’ the system to talk to someone you don’t know. It should create somewhat formal channels to allow serious discussion and professional links, only the book trade isn’t particularly formal; most of us are a little more colourful than LinkedIn encourages through its interface.

I’ve been a big supporter of Google+ since the beginning and still am. I think it’s starting to really take shape. The circles model could work really well; you can pick your stream, i.e. who you want to listen too, you can pick your audience, i.e. who you want to talk to. The level of intimacy is somewhere between Twitter and Facebook, creating a common ground akin to a wedding party; you have a common connection which is enough to allow some level of mutual familiarity. This multiplex communication is key in my opinion; I feel much more comfortable commenting on a ‘stranger’s’ post on Google+ than elsewhere, simply because of this often tenuous connection. As far as the book trade and commerce goes, this could work really well but isn’t fully supported yet. Twitter would allow catalogue announcements for example via a common hashtag, there’s nothing comparable in Google+, you filter by person not by content, but I’m sure Google will address this soon. As for commerce, well, as there’s no brand concept yet on Google+ – though it’s now promised forthcoming functionality – so commerce is at a personal level. I list my new books on Google+ individually (it’s very easy via Google Reader). I don’t see it as a particularly useful channel for commerce just yet, something which I can say for the other channels too, and it certainly doesn’t have the brand promotion that Facebook does. But in the future, as information gets filtered more smoothly, it could really work.

Now, consider each of the above in a slightly different light: imagine that all your colleagues, clients, suppliers and everyone else is on each of the networks. The possibilities are great. Twitter would be great for a quick glance at books for sale or books wanted. Facebook would be great for promoting your brand and content. Google+ would be great for promoting your content and getting connected. Let’s forget about LinkedIn for now. So what’s the problem? Well, two things: adoption and audience access. Twitter has the big audience but the adoption rate in book trade is minimal simply because the audience is too diluted and there’s no tangible ROI. Facebook has the big audience but the adoption rate is low because the nodes in the network are too distinct; it’s hard to reach out to your market, the market has to come to you. Google+ has the desired audience access (i.e. you can post all the content you want and connect with people in a comfortable manner) but it doesn’t have a widespread adoption.

So why not create a specific social network for the book trade? Well, I tried that for a couple of years and the adoption rate was too low, also, most people don’t want another site to be visiting. The specificity of a trade-based network would also discourage growth. So, may as well use the framework within existing networks. The next step is to encourage adoption within the trade – get an account on each of the networks, add everyone you know within the trade, add the people that they know. On Google+ this last part works really well; I have people adding me who I have no connection with and know nothing about but they’ve added me because they want to listen to my public messages, they want to create that connection. The communication channel is more fluid than email, it’s an active stream, not a series of letters. When this is reached there’s an inversion of control provided by Google; we’re not competing to get the top spot on Google’s search, we’re competing to build the greatest audience, but more importantly, an audience that we can share for mutual benefit.

Now, to finish, I’d like to gauge a little on how this article is received. If you read this on Twitter, then please retweet, if you read it on FaceBook then please like it, if you view it through Google+ then please +1 it, of course, you can comment if you like too.

Disclaimer: the above is in no way a cunning ploy to get this article spread!

It’s been a while…I do apologise…again. I’m going to try and schedule articles more regularly from now on and it’ll be more likely that it’ll be about collectable authors / books, rather than perhaps the state of the market etc. And what better way to commence than with the recent George R.R. Martin phenomenon.

Now, for those who aren’t aware, George R.R. Martin is a fantasy author harking from the US. He’s best known for his ongoing Song of Fire and Ice series, which commenced with A Game of Thrones. The series became popular with the speculative fiction audience from day one, but really got it’s current momentum due to a recent HBO series. The series had a huge budget, somewhere around $50m, and it was pretty effective. The side-effect of this has been a massive increase in the perceived value of the books (I’m cautious to call it anything more than perceived value at this point, because the huge spike needs to be ‘verified’ by the subsequent market trends).

So, to the books. Well, we’re really only talking about the first three books: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. And each book comes in three different flavours: UK First Edition, US First Edition and the Limited Edition.

There’s been some debate about which edition is the true first edition of Game of Thrones. The US Bantam edition was printed earlier than the UK edition as copies were handed out at the ABA, but the UK edition was the first published edition. Personally, I class the UK edition as the true first edition as it was first to market, though this is of course open to discussion. The US first is presented with a bright silver jacket (not to be confused with the smaller, duller, inexpensive book club affair). There were somewhere around 50,000 copies of this printed. The value of this has always floated around the £100-£300 mark, and has seen a slight peak since the TV series, but that value has always been a little inflated with regard to print run, reflected in the only marginal increase in value of late. Also note that the US first was reprinted in 2002 with only slightly different cover (there’s a castle in the background), this point should be noted as the copyright page suggests it to be a first edition.

The UK edition is a much more attractive book and the print run was drastically smaller; somewhere around 2000 copies. This time last year the value was between £100 and £250. Over the last few months though, this has skyrocketed with selling prices (not listing prices) being close to £1000. Plenty of copies have come to market since the TV show and the values have been largely maintained. This can be contrasted to a release of a limited edition of a new novel where the first few copies spike and then subsequent copies don’t fetch as much as the demand has lessened a little – the contrast being that this edition isn’t yet losing steam as the supply is still quite limited. Be wary though of buying library editions, unless you want the jacket as there are a few out there and they’re much less likely to maintain their current three figure values.

The final valuable edition is a limited edition published by Meisha Merlin in the US. Two editions were published; a lettered edition of 52 copies and a numbered edition of 448 copies. Neither comes to market that often, indeed I haven’t seen the lettered edition for months. The numbered edition was fetching close to £1000 just whilst the TV show was airing.

The next two books follow a similar trend, with each being slightly less valuable than it predecessor. This drop in value is simply due to the nature of the market – people want the earliest in the series, which is also usually the best known and they believe being the most experimental it is likely to have the lowest print run. In my experience of the UK editions, book two is scarcer than book one and book three is much scarcer still. Here are some numbers: over the last 18 months I’ve sold 12 copies of book one, four of book two and two of book three.

It’s curious though how so few copies are on the market at present – are the dealers unable to find copies or are they unwilling to buy at current prices? I personally believe it to be more the latter than the former. I’m still buying the UK editions when I can, but supply is very much down. The last copy of Game of Thrones I sold was for £500, would I buy a copy now for £300 if I saw one? No, probably not. The risk level is too high for me with this kind of volatility. I am still hunting for them though. So, there’s a bit of wariness in the trade, but saying that, the trade hadn’t really caught on with these books yet – all still a bit too young for most and too young to be hyper-modern, so a bit of a black spot.

So, for the future? Well, someone has a set of the MM numbered editions for sale around the £6000 mark. The market isn’t happy with that, but all other UK and MM editions have sold out online from the various portals and they have been in the £1000-£2000 range for sets. The US edition is still abundant, so personally I’d only buy this for a collection, not for an investment. The UK and MM editions are scarce, and the series certainly has legs to it; we’ll remember this in 20, 30, 40 years time. Personally, I’d value the MM editions at around £500 each and the UK editions at around £250 each. I believe the current market to be a bit over-hyped as people are holding on to their copies so driving down the supply against and strong demand due to the TV series. However, the TV series was very well received in general, and subsequent series are in production. The books should be on course for a good future, just be conscious that you’re in the middle of a volatile period and it’s unlikely that these books will be worth in the low thousands for a good few decades – if they ever get there.

I’ve installed a new comment system which uses Disqus, a widely-used blog commenting system. The upside is that people can comment without being registered at Hyraxia, the downside – you can’t use your Hyraxia login to comment, though can comment as a guest. Let me know what you think (in the comments)!