Due to some measures, the book business is doing better than ever.
Last year, readers bought nearly 827 million printed books, an increase of about 10 percent from 2020, and a record since NPD BookScan began tracking 20 years ago.
But not everything is as rosy as it seems. As book buyers have migrated online, it has become more difficult to sell books by new or lesser-known authors. With the exception of surprising runaway bestsellers (e.g., “Where the Crawdads Sing”) and books by celebrities or branded authors (Matthew McConaughey, James Patterson), most writers fail to find large audiences. Of the 3.2 million titles BookScan tracked in 2021, less than one percent sold more than 5,000 copies.
The gap points to what is arguably the most intractable problem in publishing: how to reproduce online the serendipity of walking into a bookstore and discovering new books and authors. Several companies have tried to address the problem, with varying results. Now, a new app, Tertulia, launched this week is trying a different approach, measuring and distilling online chatter about books to point readers to those that spark discussion.
When bookstores were the primary suppliers of books, an interesting cover, a prominent display in Barnes & Noble, or the impassioned endorsement of an independent bookseller could prompt a reader to pick up something new. But online, the old methods of creating buzz and boosting sales no longer work. On the web, industry experts say, readers can easily click on something they know they want, but are less likely to encounter something unfamiliar.
“Everyone knows you can sell books online,” said John Ingram, president of the Ingram Content Group, the largest book distributor and wholesaler in the United States. “The question is, how do you get content to people who might be interested in it?”
Several companies have tried it. Two years ago, Ingram launched a discovery website, Bookfinity, which offers users tailored recommendations after giving them a survey and assigning them a “reader type” including beach reader, cool mom/dad, and spiritual seeker.
Others include Booqsi, a platform that bills itself as a “community-focused, Amazon-free alternative to Goodreads,” and Copper, a new author-centric book discovery app designed to connect readers with writers. (About 500 authors have signed up so far.) Another company, Open Road Integrated Media, markets e-books with older titles. David Steinberger, the CEO, said it is doubling the total sales of its customers’ titles.
“There is an endless hunger among the tech and publishing people to find the holy grail of book discovery, but I don’t think anyone has found a tool or an algorithm or an AI platform that will do the job for you. does,” says Peter. Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, which analyzes the book industry.
The latest addition to this increasingly crowded niche is Tertulia, a sleek new app that takes a fresh approach to online discovery.
Using a blend of artificial intelligence and human curation, Tertulia collects book reviews and recommendations from around the web, based on social media posts, book reviews, podcasts and news articles to generate reading recommendations tailored to individuals’ tastes and interests.
To get personalized recommendations, users answer questions about what genres they like and what kind of people they want to hear about books from (options include space explorers, poets, chefs, historians, entertainers, and book reviewers). Users can also log in with their Twitter accounts, which allows the app’s algorithms to search their feeds to get book recommendations from people they follow.
Every day Tertulia generates a personalized list of five books. Elsewhere in the app, users can browse lists of notable titles across genres, which are sorted by buzz, rather than sales. Currently, Tertulia’s “Most Discussed” lists feature a mix of older and newer titles – the fiction list includes Toni Morrison’s “Sula” and Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” along with recently released novels by Jennifer Egan and Emily Sint Jan Mandel.
By leveraging online conversations about books and narrowing them down into digestible lists, Tertulia’s founders hope to replicate the “word of mouth” recommendations that once drove sales in brick-and-mortar stores. The name Tertulia, which means gathering in Spanish, refers to the tradition of informal literary salons and artistic gatherings.
“There’s Netflix for movies, there’s Spotify for music,” said Sebastian Cwilich, CEO of Tertulia and co-founder of Artsy, an online visual arts marketplace. “But there wasn’t really an equivalent discovery experience for books.”
Cwilich, along with Robert Lenne, who specializes in design and digital product development, and Lynda Hammes, former publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine, co-founded the app. ” from experts, instead of spouting what’s on the bestseller lists. That idea turned into a more ambitious one: “What if it were all the book talks in the world, all the talk about books?” he said.
In addition to being a recommendation engine, Tertulia acts as a massive online bookstore, with approximately 15 million titles. Ingram, a partner and investor in Tertulia, will fulfill and ship orders placed through the app. For now, only paperbacks and hardcovers are available, but the company plans to start selling e-books and audiobooks in the coming months, Cwilich said.
Some are skeptical that an app will solve the online discovery problem. Readers are already bombarded with social media recommendations, endless best-of lists, celebrity book clubs, reviews, and other prompts. Tertulia and other new businesses face significant hurdles, such as convincing people to download the app and complete a survey.
“It’s an industry issue,” said Kristen McLean, executive director of business development at NPD Books. “But are people hunting every day, waking up and saying, ‘I need to find a book discovery tool?’ They do not.”
Still, some publishers, authors and agents who got an early look at Tertulia say the app is a promising addition to the online retail landscape, especially if it becomes a hub for intelligent book recommendations beyond the usual one- to five-star rating. . system.
“What the app could do is drown out the chaos and lowest common denominator opinion with something akin to real-life discourse on books,” said essayist and novelist Sloane Crosley, who was one of 40 authors and agents to be named. recruited to test the app before it launched. launch. “If Tertulia can advance the average discourse on books, they may reign long.”