Previously on the blog I said:
Another interesting theory was mentioned in this article recently about Netflix losing subscribers--at least temporarily. There's a theory on consumer behavior that when presented with too many streaming services people will turn to broadcast TV and just watch whatever's on. Sometimes I feel that "decision fatigue" though I don't usually turn to broadcast TV. But if I can't think of any new or new to me shows I want to watch I'll just turn to a trusty old favorite and start rewatching it like American Dad, Archer, or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Or sometimes I just do that if there's a new season of that show and I want to get caught up as happened with Crackle's SuperMansion this last weekend. Pluto TV's MST3K and Rifftrax channels are also something I'll turn to if I just want to turn something on without really committing to watching a full episode of something.
I was just thinking about TV at the time, but then I was thinking that this theory can probably be applied to book shopping as well. You know why some authors like James Patterson or John Grisham or Dean Koontz sell so many books? Because they're familiar brands and when in doubt, people will go with the familiar.
Imagine this: you go in an ice cream parlor and they have 300 flavors to choose from. Maybe one catches your fancy right away or maybe you (and the server) get tired of trying to decide and just order straight vanilla or chocolate. Something familiar. Something "safe."
That's what I think is the root of that article mentioned above. We think more choices is better, but there's a point where there's too much choice. If the ice cream parlor has 31 flavors then it's not so bad, but 50, 100, 300, or more and it starts to get to be too much.
If you go into a bookstore and want a book there are literally thousands to choose from. You might want a mystery but there are so many to choose from you could spend hours reading the back of each one--or you could just grab a Sue Grafton or Agatha Christie or whatever.
If you're looking on Amazon it's about a million times worse. I mean you could spend days looking for the perfect book--or just grab whatever is popular or familiar to you. And like when you're buying an ice cream cone, you probably don't want to put hours of work into buying a book.
This is a problem for self-published authors and new or mid-list authors. There's so much choice that it's hard to stand out. And when presented with so much choice, people often just go with what's familiar. The path of least resistance. As much as I want to complain about it, we all do it. There's just not enough time or energy to devote to looking for books or finding something to stream.
And yet of course while there's too much choice there's also not enough choice. If you went to an ice cream parlor that only had 2 flavors you'd think it was a gyp. Each person probably has his or her own ideal amount of choice to avoid being over or underwhelmed.
3 comments:
One of my favorite apps is Pluto TV. When I get decider fatigue I just turn on Pluto and watch whatever’s playing. Too many decisions can be a real problem especially using your example of ice cream. Keep it simple.
I was recently searching for a non-fiction book on Amazon, and there were just so many self-published cheap looking books coming up in the search that I didn't end up buying anything. Not that I wouldn't buy a non-fiction self-published book, but it has to look professional, and the author has to describe their own experience as to why they wrote the book. Not just throw it out there.
I mean, there's a reason why brands like Coke, McDonald's, and Disney are and have been for decades ubiquitous, because they spend obscene amounts of money on advertising, which makes them inescapable, regardless of how many other options have always been available. And you have people legitimately convinced they're the best options around, just because they're so well-known and in that sense reliable. We think it's quality that attracts attention, that makes something visible. There's just too many options, for sure, for that to even begin to be true. That's what happens. You even see this in blogging, why it's so important to leave comments if you want people reading your own blog, because for most bloggers, it's the comments that mean something, not even what the comments actually are, but the fact that someone left one. So if you can leave a million comments, you can get...a lot of attention.
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