Entries tagged with “Random House” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Random House Expands Ebook Offerings, Embraces EPUB
Peter Brantley
November 25, 2008
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Random House is pursing digital with a vengeance, recognizing a growth market. From the Huffington Post:
The publisher already has more than 8,000 books in the electronic format and will have a digital library of nearly 15,000. The new round of e-books is expected to be completed within months; excerpts can be viewed online through the publisher's Insight browsing service.
Also notable, Random will make all current and future ebooks available in EPUB format.
Report: Random House Shifts Ebook Royalties to Net Receipts
Mac Slocum
October 29, 2008
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Richard Curtis says Random House has announced a shift in its ebook royalties in a letter recently sent to literary agents. From E-Reads:
Commencing December 1, 2008, the new royalty rate for sales of ebooks will be 25% of the amount received for all sales, Random's letter goes on to state. What does Random House actually receive? Most e-book retailers take a discount of approximately 50% of an e-book's list price. Therefore, the amount received by Random House -- the amount on which the new royalty will be based -- is about half of the list. [Emphasis included in original post.]
How Should Authors Promote Themselves Online?
Kate Eltham
October 23, 2008
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As the director of an organisation for writers I was curious about the announcement of Random House's new Web toolkit to assist RH authors to set up and maintain their own Web pages.
booktrade.info reports:
... the toolkit allows authors to customise their pages with a choice of backgrounds, fonts and colours. Authors can then select different types of content to add to their pages, such as profile or biography information, links to favourite sites, audio and video clips, book reviews, bibliographies, photo galleries, blogs and newsletters.
The web pages will be hosted on a community-based website called AuthorsPlace and once authors have created their web pages they can choose whether to interact with other authors on the site, or whether to use their pages as a standalone website.
There's a couple of things worth discussing here. Firstly, a system that allows users to set up their own page and add content such as audio, video, images, etc. sounds awfully like a blog platform. If the goal is to put this power in the hands of your authors, why bother to build your own, possibly expensive, proprietary Web architecture instead of educating your authors to use Wordpress, Movable Type or Blogger for themselves?
The obvious answer would be to control the platform. No matter how much customisation users can achieve with colours, fonts, images, etc., the pages will ultimately be constrained by the limitations of the platform. This could have both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, if Random House wants to drive attention to their authors' Web sites they only have to concentrate on doing it for the one online community instead of dividing their efforts among titles or writers. If Random House gets good at SEO this could be a powerful benefit to RH authors. On the minus side, it would presumably be very costly to keep a platform like that up to date with relevant features. Why bother to invest in the software development cycle when other companies are doing it as their core business and a lot faster? Some, like The Lazarus Corporation, are even offering artist-tailored solutions free and open source.
Secondly, I'm interested in the idea of the AuthorsPlace, because alongside Authonomy, this is another example of a community where writers talk to other writers. I question the value of this to Random House and to its authors, at least in terms of book sales. Obviously there are a lot of benefits to writers who can be supported by professional communities of interest. But I think publishers' efforts are best spent on assisting authors to connect with readers. That's a much harder task. It means you have to understand and be good at search. You have to to stick with the conversation long after the book is launched. You have to be open about, and even encourage, sharing and spreadability of digital content, even when that content is the book. (See what Paulo Coelho thinks about that.)
Finally, all this raises the much broader question of how authors should be promoted online for best outcomes. I'm a firm believer that nobody can do this better than the author themselves, but what is the role of the publisher in online promotion of their authors and titles? How long can they realistically commit resources and energy to any one particular title or writer? Who controls the message? Given that, as Mac suggested in this post earlier this week, the shift is towards two-way conversation, it would seem that the best results will be achieved by authors who are genuinely prepared to put in the time to engage in that conversation.
What do you think authors should do to promote themselves online? How much should publishers get involved?
UK Service Brings Audiobook Downloads to Mobile Phones
Mac Slocum
April 21, 2008
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UK-based GoSpoken has partnered with Random House to make 50 audiobook titles available for purchase through the GoSpoken mobile download service. GoSpoken is currently aimed at early adopter UK residents who have broadband-capable cellphones (specifically, HSDPA-enabled) and mobile data plans.
Managing director Tony Lynch describes the genesis of GoSpoken on the company's blog:
As I travel round London, I am staggered by the amount of people traveling with earphones attached and because I have a vested interest and never stop wondering what they are actually listening to. Now those people who have seen me staring at them through buses, trains and their daily commuter work will be able to download the audio version of best-selling fiction and non-fiction anywhere where their network gives them broadband coverage.
(Via Peter Brantley's read20 listserv.)
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