Day: November 28, 2007

The blogs that they started live in the long tail of the blogosphere, however, and the reality is that it is difficult to make money in the long tail – Anderson’s point was that the money is to be made by selling to the long tail, not so much by existing in it. In this post we examine why that is and look at other aspects of long tail economics.

There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere

OK, so law school casebooks are long tail stuff.  The money is in selling the books, not in writing them.  The value to authors in the casebook market is reputational not monetary.  But the reputational value comes from being in the long tail, not being the long tail.  In other words if you write the only casebook in area Y of the law, then it will get used, or not, because the choice is limited.  If you write a casebook in area X that is has a greater choice of titles, then your reputation is enhanced when the book is chosen over competitors.  This means that eLangdell should be looking for works in the traditionally well covered areas of the law to get started, because nothing will enhance the reputation of eLangdell authors more than having their work chosen over traditional works.

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Tags: eLangdell, CALI