Such an interesting thought, but for some reason it was hard for me to read your article. Perhaps because of the large number of questions you give me to think about. Indeed, perhaps we try to keep the focus of our attention to a minimum and concentrate on one individual, even if it is a company of writers/football players, etc. You've given me a good challenge for today. Thank you!
Well...the monsters offer at least a semblance of reliability, while the individuals form personal relationships with the customers. When a group grows beyond the personal relationships with customers but is not big enough to compete with the monsters, it may have grown too far. One way I see small organizations handling this is dividing up the customers with whom each one maintains personal relationships. Publishers and literary agencies can even do this in a way that looks professional, without snubbing anybody... "A edits front-page articles, B edits articles about education, C edits..." etc.
I may use this newsletter as a jumping off for my column for next week. Because I think that the "middle" is meant to be public radio and television, and non-profit news. All are very local, and non-profit news - because it's a newer model - does good work. It's just that no one really knows them. Public radio - which I am a veteran of - has the reach, but has institutional issues - in every city. Which is odd, because NPR member stations are independent. Yet most are dysfunctional in certain common ways. It has long been a source of intense disappointment that local public radio is not practicing good, must-hear journalism (there are definitely exceptions). This is something that actually has broken my heart.
Anne, you're basically talking about a shift from "normal" distribution (basically a bell curve) to a power law distribution (fat head, long tail). The classic essay on this as it relates to this topic is Clay Shirky's but fuck, his site is down (man, the web is not a good archive, is it) and no dice at the Internet Archive. Here's an excerpt of it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968496 You could say it is a 300 year process, or even, one that starts with the printing press, a 600 year process. Once you were a fan of the best singer in the village, no big and no middle—the only good singer you know. Then you're a fan of the one anointed by a massive system with massive returns to scale (publishing, radio, labels, studios etc.) mostly big—Caruso, Elvis, Madonna with some middle and some small. A bell curve. Now we're fans of anyone who speaks to us especially when we can feel a connection with fellow fans. And you can go from tiny to massive in a few months. And sometimes back again. Power law distribution. (Distribution in the statistical sense, not the Ingram sense :-)
lol true! And luckily I know that essay so it's "fine" that you can't find it on the internet (lol lol lol lol)
But is there a twist to Shirky's thesis that's occurred over the past decade or so or are we just seeing it calcify? I feel like the long tail needs to be revised in the face of influencer culture. And, maybe, Trump!
Well, my feeling is that what he described wasn't a new phenomenon but has been slowly increasing over 600 years as the costs of reproducing [anything] fall to zero, and the ease of being connected to others increases. But his instance was, really, blogs and where dogotal reproduction and digital connection dramatically intensify analog reproduction and analog communication (though those themselves were dramatic shifts compared to handmade productions and wandering minstrels. In the last ten years, yeah, from blogs to, well, any/everything: books, blogs, tweets, Substacks, songs, photos, videos, any 3D printed object!
Which, to take it back to book publishing, reminds me of the absolute batshit preference so many have for print books, which props up the distribution system, which in addition to other problems, is stupidly climate unfriendly (books are constantly being trucked and ship from place to place and then back again). Blame the damned aura I guess.
I love "watching" you think in this essay. I read a lot of individual newsletters and sometimes feel a bit concerned that I might be living in a cul-de-sac. But the big operations always have a massive profit motive, and this leaves me cold. I'm a novelist and I've not yet bothered to query agents or look for a Big Five deal, preferring to go indie instead. I asked an agented friend if it was possible to find an agent who can help me find a great indie press where I can work with an editor I respect, and he essentially told me not to bother because so many indie presses fold and editors lose their jobs. Ugh. So here I am in the wilderness, trying not to rely on Amazon (lots of concerns over Amazon!), but thinking there has GOT to be a middle somehow! Your essay came right in the middle of my muddle, I really appreciate it.
Ugh I hate to hear agents say things like this! I mean--Big Five editors are always switching jobs too. There are agents who can help you find a good indie press that won't leave you stranded ;)
I wonder if it’s a matter of a clear voice. A24 movies all feel like part of the same vision. BuzzFeed felt like “content” more than “writing” or “journalism.” It was optimized for engagement.
If I see that a film is an A24 movie I know what that means. Blumhouse is another. But Paramount? It could be anything.
Authors have a voice, auteur directors have a voice, and substack allows writers to have a clear voice as well. As larger media companies use focus groups and metrics to drive their content, they widen their appeal but lose a distinctive quality.
When something is distinctive it becomes a more intimate experience and that intimacy drives fandom.
That’s my theory. I’m making it up as I write it too, so maybe I’m off. I love the thought-provoking piece, thank you.
Really agree with this! I read a lot of Substack newsletters nowadays because the writers stand behind their writing. I like to know where stuff comes from. And you're right about A24, I feel like it's consistent with a vision.
It’s not just personalities and journalism and books where the middle is being ignored, eschewed, shunned... well, you know .. but in business, too. I have to lease servers for the stuff I do and my choices are now either DIY servers from AWS, Google Cloud, Azure with no support OR full service $50K a month white glove... no middle. None. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Lots of need, though, but not enough money to make any VC profitable. Nobody wants to provide anything for the middle anymore! Not enough money in it for the effort.
That is the same problem twitter had; they were the middle of the socials. They filled a huge need but they didn’t generate enough money. Nobody would actually PAY to use twitter, but they didn’t have enough reach to be a huge player yet were filling a need too big to be a small player. It’s no wonder the board pre-Elon wanted out!! I’d want out, too.
Same with Buzzfeed.. and Vice, and every second tier newspaper like the Plain Dealer, Blade, Dispatch, DDN...
I ran into that about a decade ago, when I was still running a small publishing business. At the dawn of the internet, we had our own server in our office, set up on an old Mac. But then we started getting spammed. So we had to pay a (middle company) for services. But then the duopolies (quintopolies?) bought those local server companies out. Which makes me realize that part of the issue is good old robber barons, and government cronyism.
Google put everyone in the email business out of business with Gmail. An email server uses to be one of those things that was included. Now, nobody wants to even spin up an email server, blocking POP, IMAP ports and limiting SMTP.. but the really fun part now is google is starting to throttle email if you are an organization; they won’t send your email out if you don’t buy their Workspace!!!! MS Outlook is basically the same way.. so now email addresses are per head instead of being able to spin up as many as you need on a domain. It’s maddening but we all knew this was coming... right?! People don’t understand and are mad-mad but they need to be mad at Google.... https://tourneycentral.com/help/gmail-is-blocking-my-emails-out-how-do-i-fix-this.html
Paid e-mail was not a highly viable idea. There are still about a dozen alternatives to Gmail. Even the e-mail sites *demand* you have an alternative e-mail account at least for backup, and it's a good idea to have one you publish to the world and one you don't. I mostly use Outlook but have Gmail, Yahoo, and Proton. You can still have multiple e-mail accounts with one system...I had two Yahoo accounts that were both destroyed by the same attack, and now recommend using different ones, but you *can* have multiple Gmail addresses if you set up your own instead of going through an employer.
Oh, god... don’t get me started on co-ops... trying to get a food co-op up in Kingston, NY... members just want to know when it will open ... there years in and the board is talk talk talk... frustrating for us scrappy middle ... I could go on; I won’t but if you’re a member of the Kingston NY Food Co-Op, vote!! We need 67 more member votes on the by-laws changes. ;)
"requires an inherent scrappiness that can be tiring af" is my new motto
I'd love to see a graph that shows annual revenue of small, middle, and ginormous publishers vs. movie studios. I don't really understand financing of studios so not sure where A24 sits, though it seems to me more flush, comparatively.
I also agree that there is a point that the smaller players hit and then it's either stay the same size or be acquired--it's too hard to get over the hurdle any other way.
Comic books--and comic book stores--are true heroes of the middle.
Such an interesting thought, but for some reason it was hard for me to read your article. Perhaps because of the large number of questions you give me to think about. Indeed, perhaps we try to keep the focus of our attention to a minimum and concentrate on one individual, even if it is a company of writers/football players, etc. You've given me a good challenge for today. Thank you!
Still thinking about this--really resonates. Some presses that have that A24 feel you describe would be Two Dollar Radio and Repeater Books.
Well...the monsters offer at least a semblance of reliability, while the individuals form personal relationships with the customers. When a group grows beyond the personal relationships with customers but is not big enough to compete with the monsters, it may have grown too far. One way I see small organizations handling this is dividing up the customers with whom each one maintains personal relationships. Publishers and literary agencies can even do this in a way that looks professional, without snubbing anybody... "A edits front-page articles, B edits articles about education, C edits..." etc.
I may use this newsletter as a jumping off for my column for next week. Because I think that the "middle" is meant to be public radio and television, and non-profit news. All are very local, and non-profit news - because it's a newer model - does good work. It's just that no one really knows them. Public radio - which I am a veteran of - has the reach, but has institutional issues - in every city. Which is odd, because NPR member stations are independent. Yet most are dysfunctional in certain common ways. It has long been a source of intense disappointment that local public radio is not practicing good, must-hear journalism (there are definitely exceptions). This is something that actually has broken my heart.
Anne, you're basically talking about a shift from "normal" distribution (basically a bell curve) to a power law distribution (fat head, long tail). The classic essay on this as it relates to this topic is Clay Shirky's but fuck, his site is down (man, the web is not a good archive, is it) and no dice at the Internet Archive. Here's an excerpt of it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968496 You could say it is a 300 year process, or even, one that starts with the printing press, a 600 year process. Once you were a fan of the best singer in the village, no big and no middle—the only good singer you know. Then you're a fan of the one anointed by a massive system with massive returns to scale (publishing, radio, labels, studios etc.) mostly big—Caruso, Elvis, Madonna with some middle and some small. A bell curve. Now we're fans of anyone who speaks to us especially when we can feel a connection with fellow fans. And you can go from tiny to massive in a few months. And sometimes back again. Power law distribution. (Distribution in the statistical sense, not the Ingram sense :-)
lol true! And luckily I know that essay so it's "fine" that you can't find it on the internet (lol lol lol lol)
But is there a twist to Shirky's thesis that's occurred over the past decade or so or are we just seeing it calcify? I feel like the long tail needs to be revised in the face of influencer culture. And, maybe, Trump!
Well, my feeling is that what he described wasn't a new phenomenon but has been slowly increasing over 600 years as the costs of reproducing [anything] fall to zero, and the ease of being connected to others increases. But his instance was, really, blogs and where dogotal reproduction and digital connection dramatically intensify analog reproduction and analog communication (though those themselves were dramatic shifts compared to handmade productions and wandering minstrels. In the last ten years, yeah, from blogs to, well, any/everything: books, blogs, tweets, Substacks, songs, photos, videos, any 3D printed object!
Which, to take it back to book publishing, reminds me of the absolute batshit preference so many have for print books, which props up the distribution system, which in addition to other problems, is stupidly climate unfriendly (books are constantly being trucked and ship from place to place and then back again). Blame the damned aura I guess.
also what would Shirky say about fandom per se? Again, to me that seems different from his argument (though I suppose I could also reread it, ha)
I love "watching" you think in this essay. I read a lot of individual newsletters and sometimes feel a bit concerned that I might be living in a cul-de-sac. But the big operations always have a massive profit motive, and this leaves me cold. I'm a novelist and I've not yet bothered to query agents or look for a Big Five deal, preferring to go indie instead. I asked an agented friend if it was possible to find an agent who can help me find a great indie press where I can work with an editor I respect, and he essentially told me not to bother because so many indie presses fold and editors lose their jobs. Ugh. So here I am in the wilderness, trying not to rely on Amazon (lots of concerns over Amazon!), but thinking there has GOT to be a middle somehow! Your essay came right in the middle of my muddle, I really appreciate it.
Ugh I hate to hear agents say things like this! I mean--Big Five editors are always switching jobs too. There are agents who can help you find a good indie press that won't leave you stranded ;)
I really was going to get that book before you wrote this.
A24 is a fascinating case. I was hooked on them after just one of their films.
I wonder if it’s a matter of a clear voice. A24 movies all feel like part of the same vision. BuzzFeed felt like “content” more than “writing” or “journalism.” It was optimized for engagement.
If I see that a film is an A24 movie I know what that means. Blumhouse is another. But Paramount? It could be anything.
Authors have a voice, auteur directors have a voice, and substack allows writers to have a clear voice as well. As larger media companies use focus groups and metrics to drive their content, they widen their appeal but lose a distinctive quality.
When something is distinctive it becomes a more intimate experience and that intimacy drives fandom.
That’s my theory. I’m making it up as I write it too, so maybe I’m off. I love the thought-provoking piece, thank you.
Def. voice! And what we now call a "brand" which is a form of voice.
Really agree with this! I read a lot of Substack newsletters nowadays because the writers stand behind their writing. I like to know where stuff comes from. And you're right about A24, I feel like it's consistent with a vision.
It’s not just personalities and journalism and books where the middle is being ignored, eschewed, shunned... well, you know .. but in business, too. I have to lease servers for the stuff I do and my choices are now either DIY servers from AWS, Google Cloud, Azure with no support OR full service $50K a month white glove... no middle. None. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Lots of need, though, but not enough money to make any VC profitable. Nobody wants to provide anything for the middle anymore! Not enough money in it for the effort.
That is the same problem twitter had; they were the middle of the socials. They filled a huge need but they didn’t generate enough money. Nobody would actually PAY to use twitter, but they didn’t have enough reach to be a huge player yet were filling a need too big to be a small player. It’s no wonder the board pre-Elon wanted out!! I’d want out, too.
Same with Buzzfeed.. and Vice, and every second tier newspaper like the Plain Dealer, Blade, Dispatch, DDN...
I ran into that about a decade ago, when I was still running a small publishing business. At the dawn of the internet, we had our own server in our office, set up on an old Mac. But then we started getting spammed. So we had to pay a (middle company) for services. But then the duopolies (quintopolies?) bought those local server companies out. Which makes me realize that part of the issue is good old robber barons, and government cronyism.
Google put everyone in the email business out of business with Gmail. An email server uses to be one of those things that was included. Now, nobody wants to even spin up an email server, blocking POP, IMAP ports and limiting SMTP.. but the really fun part now is google is starting to throttle email if you are an organization; they won’t send your email out if you don’t buy their Workspace!!!! MS Outlook is basically the same way.. so now email addresses are per head instead of being able to spin up as many as you need on a domain. It’s maddening but we all knew this was coming... right?! People don’t understand and are mad-mad but they need to be mad at Google.... https://tourneycentral.com/help/gmail-is-blocking-my-emails-out-how-do-i-fix-this.html
Paid e-mail was not a highly viable idea. There are still about a dozen alternatives to Gmail. Even the e-mail sites *demand* you have an alternative e-mail account at least for backup, and it's a good idea to have one you publish to the world and one you don't. I mostly use Outlook but have Gmail, Yahoo, and Proton. You can still have multiple e-mail accounts with one system...I had two Yahoo accounts that were both destroyed by the same attack, and now recommend using different ones, but you *can* have multiple Gmail addresses if you set up your own instead of going through an employer.
Yes, I am working on a follow up to this that looks at distribution in book publishing as another example of a vanishing middle.
Oh, god... don’t get me started on co-ops... trying to get a food co-op up in Kingston, NY... members just want to know when it will open ... there years in and the board is talk talk talk... frustrating for us scrappy middle ... I could go on; I won’t but if you’re a member of the Kingston NY Food Co-Op, vote!! We need 67 more member votes on the by-laws changes. ;)
58 more votes!!! Progress.
Tell me more about how the middle can benefit more!
Great point and def. agree re: individual fandom isn't new and shift to accessibility. Also, hustle/gig culture...
"requires an inherent scrappiness that can be tiring af" is my new motto
I'd love to see a graph that shows annual revenue of small, middle, and ginormous publishers vs. movie studios. I don't really understand financing of studios so not sure where A24 sits, though it seems to me more flush, comparatively.
I also agree that there is a point that the smaller players hit and then it's either stay the same size or be acquired--it's too hard to get over the hurdle any other way.
Comic books--and comic book stores--are true heroes of the middle.