Top all-time · #3821
Elle Griffin
Personal blog · elysian.press · on HN as ellegriffinphilosophycultureeconomics
Elle Griffin writes The Elysian, a personal blog at elysian.press about philosophy, culture and economics. Since 2023, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 32 times, most often “No one buys books”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-27, and you can follow it by feed.
Weekly essays exploring utopia, from Elle Griffin. Essay collections, printed pamphlets, and a reader-supported press.
Most-linked posts?
- No one buys books6 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2024-04-22
- We Should Own the Economy2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-03-04
- Silicon Valley Got Rich2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-07-08
- No one will read your book (2021)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-05-08
What Hacker News says?
Even the publishers themselves loose money on most books they publish. Its something crazy like 65% of titles loose money, and 4% of books make 60% of the profits They book industry is much similar to venture capital, where a bunch of bets are made on books that they hope they hit it big, and get the rest of their income from the long tail of previous books they hang onto. https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-boo…
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “The Internet Archive has lost its appeal in Hachette vs. Internet Archive”Submitted Every company should be owned by its employees as a story · 986 points
HN discussionWhat percentage of books do you think make $m in sales? 0.1%? 0.01%? https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more”Submitted No one buys books as a story · 662 points
HN discussionThis tracks with what publishers reported on the economics of books. https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “Ireland is making basic income for artists program permanent”Submitted Mondragon as the new city-state as a story · 249 points
HN discussionPublishers are resisting tooth-and-nail a flatrate model. See previously: "A 'Netflix of Books' would put publishing houses out of business" https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40119958
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “Z-Library admins "escape house arrest" after judge approves U.S. extradition”Submitted No one will read your book (2021) as a story · 65 points
HN discussionEdit: disregard the comment. Sadly enough, independently wealthy people are virtually the only ones who could actually publish consistently and thus possibly earn something out of the whole endeavour — under the assumption that any single book by an unknown / non-celebrity author has equal probability of being a hit. Reality seems to be that most books are failures, publishers prefer celebrities as that reduces mark…
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “23% of bachelor's degrees and 43% of master's degrees have a negative ROI”Submitted We Should Own the Economy as a story · 27 points
HN discussionThis reminds me of numerous pieces I’ve read by authors on why not to try to become an author, like this: https://www.elysian.press/p/publishing-industry-truth What it boils down to is that these are fields with a supply glut of people and/or product. My take is: never try to enter such a field unless you really think you have a chance at performing in the top 20% of all entrants in that field. Anything else is a di…
Comment linking /p/publishing-industry-truth
on “Don't Become a Scientist (1999)”Submitted Digital nomads could create network states as a story · 12 points
HN discussionThere are more books published today than ever before. 96% sold less than 1000 copies when published by the big publishing houses. I feel like that is the strongest sign the market can give that there are too many authors or many of them aren't good enough. https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “Published doesn't mean paid”Submitted Stop pretending billionaires built the future as a story · 10 points
HN discussion35% of books published are profitable 96% of books sold less than 1,000 copies in 2020 50% sold less than a dozen copies in 2020 This is the state of the industry, publishers publish many books gambling for the hits the make up the vast majority of their revenue. It is a very cold industry with many authors failing to get readers interested. They best measure of schuss is to have a preexisting readership or be popul…
Comment linking /p/no-one-buys-books
on “Published doesn't mean paid”Submitted We Should Own the Economy as a story · 6 points
HN discussionYou might be interested in the writing at https://substack.com/@ellegriffin by Elle Griffin, who is writing a book https://www.elysian.press/p/we-should-own-the-economy
Comment linking /p/we-should-own-the-economy
on “No More Companies”Submitted Silicon Valley Got Rich as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Will We Return to Craftwork? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Silicon Valley Got Rich as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Cooperatist Manifesto that inspired Mondragon as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Wakanda isn't an ideal utopia for Africa as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted If we fix the phone, we fix society as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ancient Olympians wouldn't qualify for today's Games as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to be a "good" rich person as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Social Development > Self-Development as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted "Friends" as the Ideal Community as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Stop pretending billionaires built the future as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Scottish island that bought itself as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How can we rewild the Earth at scale? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
