Entries tagged with “publishing industry” from Tools of Change for Publishing

Long-Term Questions Around Google and Content

Peter Brantley
May 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Martyn Daniels offers long-view questions around Google's copying of content from publisher books:

Publishers have in many cases argued it is healthy to give them [Google] content as they drive up sales, others that they are stealing it. Whatever your viewpoint the question that must be answered is what do they intend to do with it tomorrow? Will they always us it as they do today? Can they re assign it to others, either in part or whole? Can the copyright owner revert rights, given or taken, if the copyright ownership of the original work changes? Can the originator object? History is littered with cases where the result was not what people expected to happen at the beginning and where market dominance created a new venture not previously envisaged.

Publishing is a rights business yet we often seem to struggle managing them and the older the content the murkier rights become. Today is the right time to revisit the question of Google's Book programme and not continue to go blindly forward as if nothing has changed.

Related Stories:

• Orphan Works Legislation and Copyright Conundrums
• Sorting through Layers of Copyright
• Checking Copyright

Profile of Hay House: "An Attitude is Not a Business Plan"

Andrew Savikas
May 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

A recent New York Times article on self-help publisher Hay House is a glimpse into the fascinating life of founder Louise Hay. Whether you believe she really cured her own cancer is up to you, but beyond the human interest part of the profile are some great insights about publishing, including the importance of keeping practical business concerns in mind:

But an attitude is not a business plan. Hay House was not, in the beginning, very well run. The employees were mainly “people I knew,” Hay says, “a friend, or somebody who turned up, or somebody who wanted to work for Louise Hay. ... Meanwhile, large trade publishers, like HarperSanFrancisco and Tarcher/Putnam, were seeing the potential in New Age and investing heavily. Hay House would have failed quickly, or been bought out, but for the vision of Reid Tracy, who joined the company as an accountant in 1988 and became president in 1998. He invested his own money, too, and now owns 35 percent of the company; he is the sole shareholder besides Louise Hay herself, and everybody at Hay House, including its founder, considers Tracy the true leader.

That itself isn't terribly novel. But Reid Tracy's recognition that for authors (and savvy publishers) books are often just a means of enhancing their reputation in order to sell speaking engagements and ancillary products presaged the current buzz around using free content as a promotional tool:

[Tracy] realized more than 10 years ago that much of the money in New Age was to be made in items other than books: in card decks, audio tapes and page-a-day calendars. Major authors like Wayne Dyer and Marianne Williamson, who first came to Hay House just for ancillary products, later abandoned big trade houses to also do their books with Hay House.

And while the content Hay House published arguably couldn't be farther from what we publish, O'Reilly editor Andy Oram (who shared the original article link) pointed out some notable parallels to our eponymous brand:

• They realized that their authors had many channels for making sales besides conventional books, and they use all these channels to bolster one other.
• They recognize that their authors' work complements each other, and bring their authors together in group seminars.
• They play up the celebrity of their founder, who tends to choose trusted people based on intuition.
• They have a brand that goes far beyond the significance of any single offering, and fans accept what they think up next while staying true to the brand.
• They tend to follow their star authors wherever they take their ideas, and trust them.
• They're very self-consciously branching out into specialized products that also hold interest for children.

Related Stories:

• Why TOC is an Idea Much Bigger than O'Reilly
• A Q&A on O'Reilly’s "Up-to-Date" Publishing Experiment

News You Can Use

Andrew Savikas
April 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

We've launched a news channel on the TOC blog, where you can catch news items and insights related to business and technology innovation in publishing. It's even got its own RSS feed (you can also subscribe to a combined blog/news feed). Got news? Send your ideas to tocnews AT oreilly.com.

Amazon Pushes Print-On-Demand Exclusivity

Laura Dawson
March 28, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

The intertubes have been flapping today about Amazon's latest move to get its POD publishers and self-published authors to exclusively use BookSurge for printing their titles. The Wall Street Journal has the MSM story here (subscription required):

"It's a strategic decision," said Tammy Hovey, a spokeswoman for Amazon. What we're looking to do is have a print-on-demand business that better serves our customers and authors. When we work with some other publishers, it's not truly a print-on-demand business."

Ms. Hovey, who said Amazon began to inform publishers of the new policy at the end of February, declined to provide specifics. She said she doesn't consider the move an ultimatum.

However, one POD publisher, Angela Hoy, disagrees. In a discussion with her Amazon rep, John Clifford, she says,

Contrary to what he stated at the very beginning of our conversation, Mr. Clifford finally admitted that books not converted to BookSurge would have the "buy" button turned off on Amazon.com, just as we'd heard from several other POD publishers who had similar conversations with Amazon/BookSurge representatives.

And if a POD publisher has a significant list (Hoy's is 1,500 titles) already with Lightning Source?

Since Amazon/BookSurge does not offer Ingram distribution (Ingram distribution is considered imperative in the industry for bookstore sales), any company that accepts the Amazon/BookSurge deal, who desires to keep offering Ingram distribution, may need to maintain two copies of the book files. Since the Amazon/BookSurge current specs don't match the Lightning Source specs, future book files, both interior and cover, may need to be formatted separately. So, they would have to pay double the setup fees and might have to do double the formatting work as well...or pay designers to do double the formatting work.

In addition to placing an undue burden on smaller authors and publishers, from an overall industry perspective what does this do to Amazon's relationship with Ingram? Already, Ingram does drop-shipping for titles that Amazon cannot supply via Baker & Taylor. Amazon's own book inventory isn't that steep, certainly.

Roundup: Borders Mulling Sale, Blogs to Books

Mac Slocum
March 20, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

Borders Considers Sale
The Wall Street Journal says Borders is exploring business options, including a partial or full sale. Barnes & Noble is considered a top suitor, notes DealBook.

Fractal Press Taps Blogosphere for Anthologies
Fractal Press is working with personal finance bloggers to develop a print anthology. The final product, expected in April, will be a print-on-demand book that aggregates best-of-the-blogosphere posts. Fractal Press co-founder Navanit Arakeri says authors will receive a percentage of book sales.

Are You Ready for Free?

Mac Slocum
March 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | Listen

A recent post on ReadWriteWeb looks at the relationship between traditional publishing (newspapers, magazines, books) and teen readership. The results are hazy at best -- experts can't seem to get past the "digital reading" vs. "print reading" debate -- but a short passage in the article's magazine section touched on a topic that's popping up all over the place: the power of free content.

"MediaTel managing director Derek Jones said the [magazine] industry must find new ways of engaging with the teen market which has suffered a steady decline in sales. The problem, according to ShortList chief executive Mike Soutar, is that the younger generation like to consume media for free and they have come to expect free content through online extensions." [emphasis added]

The expectation of free isn't just the domain of teens; Web consumers from all generations are used to getting their information for free as well. This is a powerful trend that's gaining steam.

If you're intrigued by free models (or concerned), take a look at Kevin Kelly's essay "Better Than Free," Chris Anderson's article "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business," and coverage of Tim O'Reilly's TOC '08 keynote "Free is More Complicated Than You Think."