Have you heard this? Get it off iTunes.
August 25th, 2010Seth Godin has stirred up a lot of discussion with his statement that he won’t be producing books the traditional way anymore.
His key point, is that there is a huge amount of friction in spreading an idea via books, with digital the friction to becoming a fan is very very low.
It all starts when we discover something, just like a band, we get a few tidbits, suddenly we’re nodding our head, I like it!
20 years ago you would then seek out another book or record to get more of the good stuff. Unfortunately you might have to backorder or wait 9 months till the next album came out.
Now though it’s more instant you can peruse a back catalog within a few hours; read a series of ebooks, download all the albums off iTunes, read a years worth of blogs. You can go from interest to raving fan with (again) very little friction.
So Seth, I understand why, you’re right ideas can spread much much easier online.
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Tags: back catalog, fulfilling fan demand, itunes
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 at 5:04 pm. 
August 25th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Blimey…two too many “verys”, one too many “muchs”. Irony is spelling mistakes would be transparent in audio. Your junior grammatical faceplants would be glaring in such a medium. So thats very very very very much much good. Thud.
August 25th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
That’s lovely but it begs the question “how does he make money from his ideas?”
U2 have got it sussed. Instead of releasing new music which gets pirated, they go on infinite world tours. An experience you can’t pirate.
So without book revenue, I guess Seth will do more public speaking?
August 25th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
@Marcus Ha! It’s good, I write thousands of words each week, stuff like this slips through.
@Sheldon You’re assuming he’s motivated by money…
August 28th, 2010 at 8:37 am
I find the “yeah but how do you make money…?” angle so lame. Get one zillion fans like Seth has, squeezing a living out of it is not going to be a problem. Besides – he’s rich already and so are U2; I’d be willing to bet those dudes all pretty much do it for love.