It turns out that cutting inventory by 10% and facing books out (instead of just showing spines) increased their sales by 9%. This is counter to Long Tail thinking, which says that more choices and more inventory tend to increase sales.

I don’t think that’s what the Long Tail suggests. In fact, part of its premise means it can’t apply to a brick-and-mortar store, where display space is fixed (and expensive).

The key conditions are well-summarized in the Wikipedia entry:

The key supply-side factor that determines whether a sales distribution has a Long Tail is the cost of inventory storage and distribution. Where inventory storage and distribution costs are insignificant, it becomes economically viable to sell relatively unpopular products; however, when storage and distribution costs are high, only the most popular products can be sold.

Borders’ action here, instead of being “against Long Tail thinking” is actually perfectly aligned with it: they realize that their sales distribution does not have a long tail, because their customer base is too small and their cost of additional inventory is relatively high. So they have taken steps to increase the popularity slightly of a slightly smaller number of items.

Seth’s a very smart guy; it’s hard for me to tell if he’s misrepresenting the long-tail on purpose for something, or if he actually missed it on this one. I’m guessing the former, since the real point he seemed to be making in his post was a good one. Or am I the one missing the boat here?

None of this is news, of course; most of the same trash was trotted out in the 2000 election, and it didn’t fly then either. What is of more interest to me is to see how the book is treated, compared to the reception of Unfit for Command.

Will we hear sonorous declarations about the “seriousness of the charges” demanding a “full investigation”? Will it be ignored for weeks by the NYT and her spawn, until they get the official “response” from the Bush campaign?

Will we see Bush’s lawyers frantically threatening bookstores, the publisher, TV stations, and anybody walking nearby in order to squelch its release?

You already know the answer. But I still have to point it out: let the storm of hypocrisy rage anew.

UPDATE: My Pet Jawa has a great intro to Kitty Kelley.

UPDATE:TotH to Protein Wisdom for hooking me up with more details on the Kitty.