More On The Long Tail

Rachel Donadio's essay in Sunday's Times Book Review section is called Backlist to the Future and looks at long tail implications for the book publishing industry.  Right up front she does a great job limiting the scope of Anderson's book by refering to it as "his bestselling new book on the economics of entertainment."  The essay is worth reading, but to summarize in a sentence, Anderson agrees that the long tail doesn't help book publishers, but it does help consumers.  While on demand printing will ultimately help book publishers monetize the long tail, right now they can't make money selling less of more.