Entries tagged with “print” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Is Print a Preference or a Habit?
Andrew Savikas
March 16, 2009
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Over on the O'Reilly Radar blog, Dale Dougherty posted on students increasingly prefering the sound of MP3 over higher quality music:
[Jonathan Berger] has them listen to a variety of recordings which use different formats from MP3 to ones of much higher quality. He described the results with some disappointment and frustration, as a music lover might, that each year the preference for music in MP3 format rises. In other words, students prefer the quality of that kind of sound over the sound of music of much higher quality. He said that they seemed to prefer "sizzle sounds" that MP3s bring to music. It is a sound they are familiar with.
I remember wondering what audiophiles were up to, buying extremely expensive home audio systems to play old vinyl records. They put turntables in sand-filled enclosures with elaborate cabling schemes. I wondered what they heard in that music that I didn't. Someone explained to me that audiophiles liked the sound artifacts of vinyl records -- the crackles of that format. It was familiar and comfortable to them, and maybe those affects became a fetish. Is it now becoming the same with iPod lovers?
It sounds a lot like the complaints leveled against digital books, which often turn into litanies of the sensate qualities of print: touch, feel, smell, sound. I hear those comments all the time, unsurprisingly from people for whom printed books have been their primary means of reading for most of their lives. But in about 30 years, no one who's not eligible for AARP membership will remember a world without the Web. Print will always have a place, but by then I doubt it will be a primary format for many, many readers.
What do you think?
Publishers: Let the Containers Go
Mac Slocum
December 3, 2008
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In a guest post at Boing Boing, Clay Shirky says publishers who focus on book lovers rather than readers are setting themselves up to fail:
Businesses don't survive in the long term because old people persist in old behaviors; they survive because young people renew old behaviors, and all the behaviors young people are renewing cluster around reading, while they are adopting almost none of the behaviors tied to cherishing physical containers, whether for the written word or anything else. Can you imagine a 25-year-old telling a publisher "To get my business, you should stick to a single, analog format? Oh, and could you make it heavy, bulky, and unsearchable? Thanks."
Report: Wall Street Journal Grabbing High-End Ads from New York Times
Peter Brantley
November 21, 2008
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Silicon Alley Insider and others are reporting on Bloomberg's notice that the Wall Street Journal is grabbing high-end luxury advertising revenue from the New York Times:
As if the New York Times wasn't having enough trouble keeping up with an ad recession and the Internet crushing its print business. Now the newspaper is facing increasing competition for print ad s... from Murdoch's Wall Street Journal ...
... And then there's the stats: The WSJ has a paid circulation of 1.4 million, up 2.4% y/y. The NYT: 859,000, down 5.5%. With more readers, the WSJ can charge more for ads, $264,426 for full page color vs. $193,800 at the NYT.
Election Interest Signals Print's High-End Future
Peter Brantley
November 10, 2008
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Following the sell-out of post-election newspapers, Ed Nawotka looks at the collectable future of print. From Beyond Hall 8:
One immediate consequence of Obama's victory was the boost in sales for newspapers. So now we have confirmation that print is not dead -- at least as far as collectors are concerned.
This merely reinforces my belief that the long-term future of books lies in bifurcated markets: Half in cheap or reasonably priced e-books and the other half in high cost collectable volumes (be it what it may - art, photography, or even leather bound volumes of fiction).
U.S. News Shifts Focus to Digital
Mac Slocum
November 5, 2008
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U.S. News & World Report is pulling the plug on its regular print edition. From the Washington Post:
The financially struggling magazine, which cut back to biweekly publication earlier this year, now plans to reinvent itself on the Web. While it will publish one print edition each month, according to staffers briefed on the decision, these will be entirely devoted to consumer guides -- such as its annual rankings of colleges and hospitals -- and contain no other news.
Last week, the Christian Science Monitor announced that its daily print edition will be replaced by Web coverage in April 2009.
Vanishing Paper in Higher Education
Peter Brantley
November 3, 2008
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Christopher Conway has a thoughtful essay at Inside Higher Ed on the seemingly inevitable trend towards digital text consumption:
It is becoming increasingly easier to put together affordable 'readers' or anthologies culled from existing print material without bypassing rights and fees and without overloading students with unnecessary expense. If this wave of the future takes hold and becomes the new standard in textbook publishing, I think it will be good for all parties involved. But what about the paper-and-binding book? Say you are teaching David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and you had a choice between an excellent paper-and-binding edition by a major academic press, with useful footnotes and front matter, and an electronic edition that students could download to their handy e-book readers, along with selected secondary articles you have selected for them to read? What if their e-book readers had a stylus and/or a network that enabled the class to annotate those assigned texts, and share them over the class network? I don't think anyone's nostalgia for paper-and-binding can replace the pedagogical value of my not-so-fanciful or far-fetched e-book scenario."
Could a Young Newspaper Company Still Succeed?
Mac Slocum
October 27, 2008
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The Internet is usually fingered as the key disruptor for newspapers, but could change also come from leaner, smaller and younger print publications? James Erik Abels mulls this over at Forbes.com
The newspaper industry's cost structure, staffing and share price are based on an outdated business model that continues to define financial expectations. So the goal would be to slough off enough costs to let younger, more nimble newspaper businesses live without the artificial market pressure of year-over-year comparisons ...
... Certainly, newspapers are being battered by massive declines in advertising due to a bad economy. Yet that decline is merely accelerating an ongoing and devastating trend of the newspaper business being destroyed by the Internet. The financial expectations on a younger company--and the staffing and business costs it agrees to build into its organization--may be more manageable than they are for today's behemoths.
Guccione: Print Downturn Traces Back to Pre-Internet Era
Mac Slocum
September 18, 2008
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Bob Guccione Jr. says the decline in print readership started long before the Internet arrived. From The Huffington Post:
I know the conventional wisdom: that readership is being lost to the speed and efficiency of the Web. But I think the decline of traditional publishing, especially magazines, is more deeply rooted in an arrogance and laziness that goes back 30-plus years. It was once so easy to make money from publishing -- paper, printing and distribution were so cheap and newsstand sales and subscriptions so profitable that advertising revenue was gravy. Then it got more difficult, imperceptibly at first, and gradually more complicated. But, for some reason, whatever other market realities they acknowledged, publishers refused to accept that the perfect magic formula had spoiled.
What Does Esquire's E Ink Cover Mean for Print Publishing?
Mac Slocum
September 10, 2008
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I've been noodling on the implications of Esquire's E Ink cover (video available here), and for the life of me I can't see how this is anything more than a small change in a mature technology. It's on par with terrestrial radio's embrace of HD Radio and the music industry's attempts at super-high-fidelity discs (SACD and DVD-A).
Esquire deserves credit for experimenting with E Ink, and I certainly think E Ink itself has a variety of uses (Kindle and Sony Reader owners would agree). But the merging of E Ink displays and traditional print formats garners the same level of interest as National Geographic's hologram covers: neat idea ... nice execution ... but beyond the publicity and potential newsstand sales, what's the long-term point?
Future E Ink screens are projected to be ultra-light, interactive and updateable via Web connections (the Kindle offers a variation on this), but millions of consumers already own mobile devices with the same functionality. Even if these features come to pass, why would I purchase a print-digital hybrid or a separate digital-only device when I have easy access to content on a device I already own?
Bolting digital elements onto an analog medium may yield new ideas -- and there's value in that -- but there's something to be said for adaptation within a format. Radio has survived by adapting its content. Television, newspapers and magazines are in the midst of their own adaptations, and what these formats become will be influenced by the content they deliver, not the technological add-ons they incorporate. E Ink may someday emerge as a vital aspect of print material, but only when it furthers the essential elements of storytelling, information delivery and clear consumer value.
What's your take? Do you see opportunities in the merging of E Ink and print material? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
Sports Illustrated Offers Ad Space through Web Bids
Mac Slocum
August 18, 2008
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Sports Illustrated is using a Web-based bidding system to sell advertising across its online and offline properties. From Advertising Age
Executives at the Time Inc. title, the first one to try an online auction, said the move was partly to recruit those advertisers that aren't in close touch with the sales force anyway.
"There are many advertisers out there that would like the opportunity to understand what the Sports Illustrated brand is about, what those offerings are, that we just physically can't get to," said Mark Ford, president of the Sports Illustrated Group.
Ad auctions are already commonplace in Web-based advertising, most notably through Google's AdWords program.
First E Ink Magazine Cover Coming in September
Mac Slocum
July 21, 2008
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Esquire will use E Ink technology to declare "the 21st Century Begins Now" on 100,000 flashing copies of its September issue. David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, discusses the first E Ink-driven magazine cover with New York Times:
... on its own, the magazine will run out of juice after 90 days. Mr.Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print.
Update 7/23: Folio says Esquire's E Ink edition sell for $5.99, two dollars more than the usual cover price.
Open Question: What is the Best Use for Print on Demand?
Mac Slocum
June 11, 2008
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PublicAffairs Books recently used POD services from Lightning Source to manage demand for Scott McClellan's What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.
From a Lightning Source press release (pdf):
PublicAffairs' experience with this title demonstrates how POD can be used to supplement offset printings in specific cases in which demand exceeds supply for a short term. In this instance, the POD copies of the book will supplement large scale conventional offset reprints, which are underway.
PublicAffairs used POD as an insurance policy, and panelists in a Digital Custom Publishing session at BEA also noted POD's use in short runs, niche titles and its importance as a Long Tail tool.
But do insurance policies, niche books and Long Tail plays represent the extent of POD's opportunities? What options do you see for POD? How have you used it in your own organization? How will POD evolve? Please share your thoughts in the comments area.
Trees, Not Ebooks, Are the Real Source of Publishing's Worry
Peter Brantley
June 4, 2008
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Seth Godin is worried about the focus on paper, and how much it costs:
I worry about my esteemed friends in the book publishing industry as well. The amazing thing about the Times story today was the report that the mood at BEA was "unease" about ebooks. The fastest-growing, lowest cost segment of the business, the one that offers the most promise, the best possible outcome and has the best results ... is causing unease! All because of the trees.
Web Confusion Hinders Newspaper Ad Sales
Mac Slocum
June 4, 2008
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Newspaper sales teams are having a rough time explaining Web advertising's value proposition to customers. From MarketWatch:
... newspaper ad sales forces have sometimes had difficulty in explaining the logistics and benefits of online ads to traditional media buyers.
Newspapers are trying to sell Internet advertising to some clients who had not been users of print ads in the past, pointing out that online ads can be purchased much more cheaply than a print spread.
Open Question: When Will Digital Books Overtake Print Books?
Mac Slocum
May 27, 2008
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We often discuss publishing's digital transition as though it's manifest destiny, but rarely do we see firm forecasts as to when (or if) this transition will occur.
Mike Shatzkin touched on this topic during a recent discussion on the Read 20 list:
We are going to have a bifurcated market for a while. The heavy users of 2.0 tools, including social networks, will tend to skew to "younger" and "techier." They will both go for the modern products and be marketed to by the modern means. The legacy market, of people reading plain old books in paper and then the same plain old books on Kindles and other screens, will remain where the money is for published content for some years, certainly at least one decade, to come. (Posted here with Mike's permission)
I'm interested in hearing what TOC readers think of the following:
- Do you believe digital books will supplant printed books?
- If no, why? If yes, when will it happen?
Please share your answers and thoughts in the comments area.
Glimmer of Positivity in Media Industry Analysis
Mac Slocum
May 6, 2008
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A handful of recent media industry reports inject a small but noticeable degree of optimism into their examinations of the current business landscape.
Lauren Rich Fine of Kent State University tells the The Economist that adaptation could guide certain types of newspapers through the industry's rough transition:
Ms Fine also points out that although all newspapers are being buffeted by the internet, their ability to respond will probably depend on whether their audiences are national, metropolitan or local. The first category can afford to invest in distinctive international or business coverage, while the last can prosper by becoming “more intensely local”. But she fears for the big metropolitan newspapers, which may find themselves trapped in the middle.
Fine's analysis doesn't benefit medium-sized papers, but the prospect of success at large and small papers is a shift from typical declarations of "all" newspapers dying.
On the broadcast side, NBC co-chairman Ben Silverman says TV shows will need to exist on multiple platforms to succeed, and variations across formats have to be distinct. From TVWeek:
"Around our new offerings there will literally be shows that end on air and the last scene will continue online," Silverman said at the recent TelevisionWeek Upfront Summit.
Rather than feebly slapping Band-Aids on the established system, Silverman's comments suggest an acceptance -- and an embrace -- of the industry's position. This is a perspective shared by Wired editor Chris Anderson, who, in a recent talk, said the media industry needs to examine the current environment and then find ways to add value. From Journalism.co.uk:
"... we need to do something that the internet has not either not already done or done too well, that may be original reporting, maybe it's investigative reporting. Maybe it's long form narrative; maybe it's the packaging of stories with photography and diagrams ... That's basically our mission, I think, to figure out where the market failure is in the amateur internet and there in lies the commercial opportunity for us to do something that still has value and which people will pay for, either directly or in terms of their attention, which can be monetised through advertising.
On first glance it would seem that newspapers and broadcasters are in a different digital realm than book publishers, but as we've seen time and again, a development in one part of the media landscape often pops up elsewhere. There's also much to be said for a positive outlook in an uncertain environment.
The Key to Web Success: Pretend Print Doesn't Exist
Peter Brantley
April 29, 2008
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Josh Gordon at Folio explains why pure-play Web businesses are beating established publishers are their own game:
Print people are spoiled. Too often when a magazine launches a web product the editorial focus [is] the same or similar to the positioning as the print product. As for functionality, too often the mission statement is, “To extend the magazine brand onto the Internet.” Big mistake. Your website needs its own editorial focus, and mission. While it should complement your print product it cannot just extend it.
Penguin UK to Release Print and Ebook Editions Simultaneously
Mac Slocum
April 11, 2008
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Beginning in September, print and ebook versions of Penguin UK's new titles will be available simultaneously for the same price. Digital editions will be made available in .epub format through Penguin's Web sites and via retailers. From The Bookseller:
[Penguin] digital director Genevieve Shore described the move as "an important step." She said: "We have seen in other markets that the digital bestsellers are the same books making it to the top of the bestseller lists and we know our readers expect both editions to be available at the same time."
Random House Chief Exec Sees Opportunity in Shifting Book World
Mac Slocum
March 14, 2008
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In a recent speech to the Stationers' Company, Gail Rebuck, chairman and chief executive of the Random House Group, offered a hopeful perspective on the enduring role of books amidst digital change.
"The speeches of Barack Obama are seamlessly woven into rap videos on YouTube," Rebuck said, "but he started with a book, 'The Audacity of Hope,' which was the anchor and beacon of his campaign. And when he finishes, he will end like Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair –- with a book. Books give life, give purpose, give meaning – they are like music, art and song –- part of the essence of our humanity –- and that will never change."
The rise of eBooks, Rebuck noted, is an opportunity that dovetails with a developing paradox among consumers. Readers looking for instant information can find it in the digital domain, but readers seeking substance and depth will still find it in print editions.
"These contradictions will not suddenly disappear and a new map of digital publishing emerge with sharp contours and clear distinctions. But the eBook and the traditional book will claim different parts of the topography."
The full text of Rebuck's speech is worth a read.
(Via if:book.)
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