In the headline above, there's a link to an excellent round-up of links critiquing Hugh (I'm not a misogynist, it's perfectly fine to call a woman I don't know a bitch) Howey's Author Earnings Report.  In Howey's own breathless words, when he looked at the "data" in the Report: "What emerges is, to my knowledge, the clearest public picture to date of what’s happening in this publishing revolution."

 

Clear as mud, that is.  And based on data even more spurious than the reports Howey likes to mock, as these links show.

 

Also, if you are curious to read a very smart and reasonable take on the matter, check out Chuck Wendig's blog post: Check the Box: Do You Want to Be Your Own Publisher, Yes or No?  And don't miss the follow-up when his email box got bombed by Howey's brainless disciples in response to that blog post: Self-Publishing Truisms.

 

But hey, most of us are readers first and foremost.  Why should we care what authors do?  We just want good stories, right?  How we get them is irrelevant, no?  And hey, self-publishing means lower prices!  That's GREAT for us!  Isn't it?

 

Well, yeah, lower prices are always welcome, especially if it means authors can still be paid a reasonable wage for their work.  

 

And yes, in theory, more stories = more stuff to read = more fun for avid readers.

 

But I do think there is a dark side to self-publishing for readers.

 

We're seeing it in social media attacks on reviewers for daring to give a book a less than ZOMG SQUEE BOOK BOYFRIEND 4EVAH 5*********!!!1111!!! reviews.  Attacks so vicious that I'm sure we all know at least one or two formerly prolific reviewers who have stopped cold turkey.  Authors urging their fans to leave nasty comments or down vote less than favorable reviews.  Authors urging others to write positive reviews - doesn't matter if you haven't read the book - in order to push the negative review off the book's front page on Amazon or GR.

 

We're seeing it in self-pubbed authors buying reviews on Fivrr and elsewhere to game the system.  Or my previous post, in which even experienced authors with established careers are resorting to bribing readers in exchange for five star reviews.

 

And our reading material is hurting.  I'm in the process of my "I Read Kindle Samples So You Don't Have To" experiment.  And believe me, you DON'T want to read many of these samples.  Yet these books are selling, in mass quantities.  The problem is tomorrow's writers are today's readers.  And today's readers are learning fractured English grammar, cardboard characters, story arcs that resemble a flat line, and wooden dialogue.  We can't look to traditional publishing to save us, either, because trad publishing is rewarding the self-pubbed best sellers with print contracts - but very, very little editing.  I can't blame trad publishing - it's a business, and they're in it to make money just like everyone else - but it makes sad. And disgruntled.

 

Meanwhile, you'd think "YAY!  Unlimited reading choices for everyone!" would be AWESOME.  However, there's a theory of economics/psychology called "The Paradox of Choice."  Namely, the more choices a customer has, the less they will buy, and the more reliant they will become on tried and true brands/products and less likely to try new things.

 

Paradox of choice as a theory of behavior has its detractors, and in some cases it's been proven that more choice does what you would think: lead to increased buying.  However, the theory has been around long enough and shown in action often enough that I think it's something to consider.  And I know I see it in my own buying actions, as books proliferate: the more authors I have to chose from, the more I stick to my tried-and-true favorites - unless someone I trust takes me by the shoulders and says, "You must read this!"

So are authors rushing to self-publish - especially those who self-pub without so much as a copyeditor pass - actually hurting themselves in the long run as readers become overwhelmed by choice and retreat to authors/recommenders they trust?

 

Not if you ask Howey.  He says that even "bad" books should be self-published and let the readers decide.  But when we readers are wading in a cesspool of mediocrity, how likely are we to reach into the polluted water on the slim chance we might pull out a diamond?

In the headline above, there's a link to an excellent round-up of links critiquing Hugh (I'm not a misogynist, it's perfectly fine to call a woman I don't know a bitch) Howey's Author Earnings Report.  In Howey's own breathless words, when he looked at the "data" in the Report: "What emerges is, to my knowledge, the clearest public picture to date of what’s happening in this publishing revolution."

 

Clear as mud, that is.  And based on data even more spurious than the reports Howey likes to mock, as these links show.

 

Also, if you are curious to read a very smart and reasonable take on the matter, check out Chuck Wendig's blog post: Check the Box: Do You Want to Be Your Own Publisher, Yes or No?  And don't miss the follow-up when his email box got bombed by Howey's brainless disciples in response to that blog post: Self-Publishing Truisms.

 

But hey, most of us are readers first and foremost.  Why should we care what authors do?  We just want good stories, right?  How we get them is irrelevant, no?  And hey, self-publishing means lower prices!  That's GREAT for us!  Isn't it?

 

Well, yeah, lower prices are always welcome, especially if it means authors can still be paid a reasonable wage for their work.  

 

And yes, in theory, more stories = more stuff to read = more fun for avid readers.

 

But I do think there is a dark side to self-publishing for readers.

 

We're seeing it in social media attacks on reviewers for daring to give a book a less than ZOMG SQUEE BOOK BOYFRIEND 4EVAH 5*********!!!1111!!! reviews.  Attacks so vicious that I'm sure we all know at least one or two formerly prolific reviewers who have stopped cold turkey.  Authors urging their fans to leave nasty comments or down vote less than favorable reviews.  Authors urging others to write positive reviews - doesn't matter if you haven't read the book - in order to push the negative review off the book's front page on Amazon or GR.

 

We're seeing it in self-pubbed authors buying reviews on Fivrr and elsewhere to game the system.  Or my previous post, in which even experienced authors with established careers are resorting to bribing readers in exchange for five star reviews.

 

And our reading material is hurting.  I'm in the process of my "I Read Kindle Samples So You Don't Have To" experiment.  And believe me, you DON'T want to read many of these samples.  Yet these books are selling, in mass quantities.  The problem is tomorrow's writers are today's readers.  And today's readers are learning fractured English grammar, cardboard characters, story arcs that resemble a flat line, and wooden dialogue.  We can't look to traditional publishing to save us, either, because trad publishing is rewarding the self-pubbed best sellers with print contracts - but very, very little editing.  I can't blame trad publishing - it's a business, and they're in it to make money just like everyone else - but it makes sad. And disgruntled.

 

Meanwhile, you'd think "YAY!  Unlimited reading choices for everyone!" would be AWESOME.  However, there's a theory of economics/psychology called "The Paradox of Choice."  Namely, the more choices a customer has, the less they will buy, and the more reliant they will become on tried and true brands/products and less likely to try new things.

 

Paradox of choice as a theory of behavior has its detractors, and in some cases it's been proven that more choice does what you would think: lead to increased buying.  However, the theory has been around long enough and shown in action often enough that I think it's something to consider.  And I know I see it in my own buying actions, as books proliferate: the more authors I have to chose from, the more I stick to my tried-and-true favorites - unless someone I trust takes me by the shoulders and says, "You must read this!"

So are authors rushing to self-publish - especially those who self-pub without so much as a copyeditor pass - actually hurting themselves in the long run as readers become overwhelmed by choice and retreat to authors/recommenders they trust?

 

Not if you ask Howey.  He says that even "bad" books should be self-published and let the readers decide.  But when we readers are wading in a cesspool of mediocrity, how likely are we to reach into the polluted water on the slim chance we might pull out a diamond?

The thesis of the book is a solid one that I can understand. The psychological mechanisms of adaptation and some of the heuristics were familiar because of prior psychological education. However, I was unimpressed with the scientific discussions in the book. A number of studies are referenced, though the references are generally made through a statement of the overall finding. No discussion of statistical or practical significane or even a mention of sample sizes. This wasn't a problem for me through most of the book because I had read about the studies elsewhere. I also had a problem with his use of evolution in the discussion about why our brains are not equipped for choice among a large number of options. I am generally intrigued by evolutionary psychology and find that a number of the hypothesis posited in the field seem to have some validity (see The Time Paradox and Righteous Minds for examples of in depth and much more valid discussions of the implications of evolution on human psychology). In this book the entire discussion was devoted to a throw away paragraph that seemed to assume that humans in early civilizations made rational choices through a mental cost-benefit analysis. This is problematic when you consider that foresight is not generally credited as an attribute to humans living day to day through hunting and gathering.

The book also has a serious flaw in discussing psychology in the realm of choice solely through options that are only available to the upper-middle class. Choosing between luxury goods and extravagant vacations is not something the ultra rich (who can afford to purchase multiple luxury goods and go on most of their desired vacations, thereby limiting the need to choose) or the lower classes (who cannot afford to go on any vacations or afford luxury cars on any frequent basis) are likely to be overly concerned with. The paradox of choice seems to only apply to a small subset of wester, educated, individualistic, rich, and democratic (WEIRD; see the study by Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan to see why extrapolating psychological results from Americans to other populations is likely to give false behavioral predictions) countries.

My last problem with this book was it's length. The preface and first section could have been dealt with in a 15 pages at most. The rest of the book could have been covered in the same detail in about 100 pages. This should have been a magazine article in Time or a pop psychology publication. I enjoy learning about psychology, but this book is not published for individuals looking for a scholarly take on the psychology or philosopy of choice abundance.

The premise of this book did interest me. What I thought was going to be a book that analyzed how the abundances of choice or at least the appearance of choice affects our perception of freedom, satisfaction, and enjoyment, turned out to be a repetitive book that sounds like an older guy complaining why there are so many different types of beans in the supermarket."I just want a can of beans! Why are there so many types! Just give me beans!"Honestly, at one point he does appear to bemoan the variety of beans that are available in the common supermarket. Not really the kind of abundance of choice I was expecting to be inhibiting our every day lives. He goes on to provide more anecdotes about how hard he is finding it to adjust to so much choice now available in the modern market place. He describes the agony of picking out a pair of jeans, since there are so many different cuts available since clothing designers have figured out that there is more than one body type.And it is his approach to buying jeans that honestly made me loose respect in his approach to the whole subject of choice. What he does is he sees that there are so many different cuts, he can't decide, therefor he buys all the different types, tries them on at home to figure out which one work for him. And there I was thinking, "Isn't that what dressing rooms are for?" He just made the whole process more convoluted and difficult than necessary, which made me think what other concepts did he just add an unnecessary level of complexity to.I really find it hard to think that it is better for a clothing store to ignore different body types and to just make clothes that fits one ideal body type to make one shopping experience easier. The truth is, everyone has to go through finding out the cut of jeans that work best for you, and then after that point, you just remember and pick the cut you know fits you after that experience. Someone really doesn't reevaluate and try on all the different cuts every single time they go to buy jeans. Just like people know their size, people know their cut. Unless there is a size 6 who tries sizes 0 - 14 only to realize that a size 6 still is the size that fits her the best.He even tried to argue that having more than one place to vacation to was a bad thing. That deciding made the experiences significantly less enjoyable. I don't know about him but once I have decided and I am on vacation, I don't really think about where I could have been but where I am currently. A vacation is a vacation, it is kind of hard to ruin them.This author could have made very valid points, but many times the anecdotes he provided made him sound like a confused, annoyed aging man who wants things to be like the good old days, his examples and scenarios weren't good at all (picking out beans, buying jeans, or where to go on a vacation, etc), and also he would provide very little evidence to back up the claims that choice was making us more miserable.

Ok, so I'm not sure if I read this book or just a paper by Mr. Schwartz of the same subject.

Doesn't matter either way, as long as you grasp the concept which is that being a maximizer in everything (or most things in your life) is no way to maximize your happiness (though I personally find contentment far worthier pursuit - in my mind happiness manifests itself only in fleeting moments) - on the contrary.

Some say Schwartz' ideas are but common knowledge. Rightly so. And it's great to have that "knowledge" in one package. I'm guessing very few indeed analytically think about the choices we all make and have to make in our daily lives. This book reminds us that we really ought to - not at every possible chance but when it really matters.

I personally feel that the best tactics is to learn to become a satisficer in all walks of life apart from love, relationships and arts. You will want friends that are worthy of your friendship, you will want to love someone who will love you back even when you are sick, broke or in a cranky mood, and you will want to be awestruck by works of art - time and time again.

According to wikipedia further studies have failed to prove Schwartz' thesis that too much choice causes stress. Of course that is a generalization to begin with. Individuals react differently. And individuals themselves value some things higher than other things. For example I couldn't care less about what beer I'm drinking. They all taste more or less like piss and all I ask for a beer is to get me drunk. But I care immensely what kind of a music I want to listen to.

Some tests that Schwartz has conducted seem to point in the direction that there could be about an equal amount of "extreme" maximizer (10%) and "extreme" satisficers (10%). The rest of us would fall somewhere along those two opposites. But it's rarely if ever a clear-cut case. As people change, so do their preferences. Having the latest smart phone is probably less meaningful to someone who's pushing 50, 40 or even 30 than it is to 20-somethings.

And of course there's this thing called adaptation. Some folks adapt rather quickly and rather effortlessly, others "require" more time. But there are also those people around who do not particularly even want to adapt. Because sometimes adapting is not that different from giving up altogether. You know by now that I'm one of those people.

I don't care for the illusion of choice. As a consumer I want actual, factual choices, not cosmetic ones. For example, there's about million "different" computer models - yet you can't buy a bare bones laptop that is really only fit for writing and very light web browsing purposes. With today's battery technology, flash memories and low to no power drawing chips and displays you could probably keep on writing with such a machine for solid 24 hours - days if using e-ink display technology. There simply isn't such a machine in the market, anywhere, at any price.

I can't call the market and ask it to make me one. I could call every manufacturer and they would all tell me the same: not enough demand. Indeed - how the hell could there even be demand if and when potential buyers aren't even aware that such a laptop could already be built first thing tomorrow?

Tisk, tisk.