No, pharma is VERY different from books! With books, you sell one unit of the product to one customer, period. (Barely any repeat custom.) Few people buy one sales unit of a medicine (except vaccines and antibiotics), and NOBODY ever goes to the second-hand pharmaceuticals store to buy their meds! - ThreadSky

cstross.bsky.social • 7 days ago

No, pharma is VERY different from books! With books, you sell one unit of the product to one customer, period. (Barely any repeat custom.) Few people buy one sales unit of a medicine (except vaccines and antibiotics), and NOBODY ever goes to the second-hand pharmaceuticals store to buy their meds!

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hypethral.bsky.social•7 days ago

Super different! It's also different in that for books marketing costs are way lower, end-user is less motivated, profit per customer is way lower (only supports low CPC), and IP rights last far longer (though there's "generic" pile-on within 6 months of a successful book these days)

hypethral.bsky.social•7 days ago

But the two markets seem very similar in that the time cost of a book is high enough to favor expertise and recommendation over other selection methods. It's also rare to choose one book over another because it's slightly cheaper (but you are willing to pay more to get something quality sooner)

cstross.bsky.social•7 days ago

The "generic pile on within 6 months" is a myth, unless you're looking at self-pub with narrow/no marketing distribution beyond amazon's algorithm. In trad publishing the production pipeline is at least 2 years deep, and a success takes more years to emerge—there are almost no instant bestsellers.

hypethral.bsky.social•6 days ago

This is for new development though right? Not search through the back catalogue of books a publisher decided not to publish before the genre popped or suddenly offer deals to self-published books that are similar?

cstross.bsky.social•7 days ago

Note that I'm talking about trade fiction here. In non-fic, esp. politician memoirs, you can sometimes see books being used for money laundering (i.e. some shell company buys 20 gazillion copies to funnel money to the "author" —who employed a ghost-writer—without breaking lobbying rules.)

owenblacker.bsky.social•6 days ago

🤯

nebulousmenace.bsky.social•7 days ago

The second hand pharm store is somewhere between cyberpunk and hallucination. If it isn't in print it should be.

kithrup.bsky.social•7 days ago

ahem

😄

sareth.bsky.social•6 days ago

I believe you are books Georg in this scenario 😉

kithrup.bsky.social•6 days ago

Books Sean, if you please.

mostlybree.kitrocha.com•7 days ago

It was too early in the morning for me to try to explain why that was a very wrong statement so I just kept it moving. lol Sometimes the information gap is just too wide!

cstross.bsky.social•7 days ago

Bonus lulz: I used to be a pharmacist (although I quit 35 years ago).

catkimbriel.bsky.social•7 days ago

Decades ago, Bree, you could be selling well in a region of the country, so early Amazon would show your books there. But they didn't show them in other parts of the country, as publishers did no advertising after the first month (1 month) and all most of us could do was convention ads/flyers.

azteclady.bsky.social•7 days ago

Remember when authors spent so much money on bookmarks with all their backlist/upcoming titles? you'd got to a convention/get a book in a giveaway, and get one or three; authors would try to get them in their books in bookstores, etc.

Because: NO publisher sponsored marketing X weeks after release.

mostlybree.kitrocha.com•7 days ago

yeah imagine if pharma launched a product and never mentioned it again after 90 days. 🤣

mostlybree.kitrocha.com•7 days ago

Yep, I'm definitely not authoritatively speaking on what it was like decades ago, because why would I do that. I've only ever existed as an author in a digital world!

catkimbriel.bsky.social•7 days ago

No, not meant as a criticism at all. But they always have an excuse, and the craziness has continued through all of publishing.

Older writers said that the SFWA Audit was the Ace accounting dept. racing to beat the SFWA auditors and get checks cut that were AGES overdue!

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