Entries tagged with “free” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Anderson: "It's All About Attention"
Andrew Savikas
July 29, 2009
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Over on Spiegel Online, Chris Anderson does a great job responding to nearly all of the standard old-media responses to new media. Unsurprisingly (I'm sure Wired would have done the same) they pulled one line from a lengthy response to create the provocative title "Maybe Media Will Be a Hobby Rather than a Job." The full passage is much more useful and nuanced:
In the past, the media was a full-time job. But maybe the media is going to be a part time job. Maybe media won't be a job at all, but will instead be a hobby. There is no law that says that industries have to remain at any given size. Once there were blacksmiths and there were steel workers, but things change. The question is not should journalists have jobs. The question is can people get the information they want, the way they want it? The marketplace will sort this out. If we continue to add value to the Internet we'll find a way to make money. But not everything we do has to make money.
The complete interview is worth a read.
Content is a Service Business
Andrew Savikas
July 13, 2009
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I've been a fan of Trent Reznor's music since first hearing Pretty Hate Machine in junior high school, but in the past few years I've been increasingly impressed by his attitude and approach to the economics of the modern digital media business. His release of Ghosts I-IV is a case study in how to do exactly what Kevin Kelly outlines in Better than Free : "When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied." Notice that even though the Free Download option is right there at the top, the $300 "ultra-deluxe" version is sold out (and was sold out within 24 hours of being released).
On his forum a few days ago, Reznor posted advice to aspiring young musicians eager to make it in the music business, and the advice is just as applicable to writers and other artists working in almost any digital medium and attempting to compete with the vast content available on the Web:
[W]hat you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters... whatever. [emphasis added]
This is not just about using free digital content to sell physical goods. It's an acknowledgment that what you're selling as an artist (or an author, or a publisher for that matter) is not content. What you sell is providing something that the customer/reader/fan wants. That may be entertainment, it may be information, it may be a souvenir of an event or of who they were at a particular moment in their life (Kelly describes something similar as his eight "qualities that can't be copied": Immediacy, Personalization, Interpretation, Authenticity, Accessibility, Embodiment, Patronage, and Findability). Note that that list doesn't include "content." The thing that most publishers (and authors) spend most of their time fretting about (making it, selling it, distributing it, "protecting" it) isn't the thing that their customers are actually buying.
Whether they realize it or not, media companies are in the service business, not the content business. Look at iTunes: if people paid for content, then it would follow that better content would cost more money. But every song costs the same. Why would people pay the same price for goods of (often vastly) different quality? Because they're not paying for the goods they're paying Apple for the service of providing a selection of convenient options easy to pay for and easy to download.
This is not new to digital content. Why would the price of admission to see a given year's Razzie Award winner be equivalent to the price of admission to see the year's Best Picture? Because the price of admission is not for the content. It's for the privilege of seeing it early, and doing so on a big screen in a social environment -- movie patrons pay for the service provided by the theater, not for the movies themselves (here's a counterpoint on movie pricing). That's the point that Reznor and Kelly are making: think long and hard about what your customers want, and provide the service of giving that to them.[1]
"But people are still buying content when they buy a book or an album," the argument goes. Yes, they are. The same way that you're buying food when you go to a restaurant. You are purchasing calories that your body will convert to energy. But few restaurants (especially those you visit frequently) have ingredients any different from those you can get yourself at the corner store, for much less money. So it can't be true that your primary goal is to purchase food; you're purchasing a meal, prepared so you don't have to, cleaned up so you don't have to, and done so in a pleasing and convenient atmosphere. You are paying for the preparation of the food and the experience of eating it in the restaurant, not the food itself [2] (beyond the raw cost of the physical ingredients, which in the case of digital content is effectively zero).
This came up during a discussion on Peter Brantley's email list recently, in the context of what someone is paying for when they buy one of our Cookbooks (which contain "Recipes" for how to accomplish specific tasks with a particular computer language or technology, often culled and curated from material and techniques previously published in blog posts, mailing lists, or help forums). I asserted that rather than the content itself, people are paying for the preparation of that content, to the extent that it helps them solve their problems more quickly and conveniently. When you think about what we do as a service business, then it makes perfect sense: readers are paying us for the service of finding a bunch of great and interesting stuff, and putting it together in a convenient package. It's the convenience of not having to find it themself, and the concise package that saves them from having to dig through a bunch of web bookmarks or search results. I didn't buy "Home Buying for Dummies" last year because I wanted a book on home buying; I bought it because I didn't want to screw up something really important (buying a house) and was willing to pay someone to spell out all of the stuff I needed to worry about in one place. People don't buy Jim Cramer's books because they want Jim Cramer's content -- they buy his books because they think it will help them get rich, and they think paying him is a great shortcut alternative to acquiring his knowledge (knowledge, not "content") themselves. These are services, not products.
The recent (and absurd) notion put forward by European publishers to "strengthen copyright protection as a way to lay the groundwork for new ways to generate revenue online" is intimately tied up with this issue of the value of content (and therefore the value of various players in the content value chain, like authors, publishers and the latest bogeyman, aggregators and search engines). Arguing that you need to beef up copyright protection to make sure there are ways to generate revenue online incorrectly assumes that what people are paying for is the copyrighted content itself. People do not care about content, they care about themselves and their problems.
You don't get an "A" for effort just by spending time and money creating content (and you are not entitled to your business model -- you have to earn that money every day by doing something that people find worth paying for -- and they decide it's worth paying for, not you). Content only has value to the extent that someone will pay for it because it accomplishes something they'd rather exchange money for than do themselves -- and when was the last time you said "Gee, I really need some content. I could write some of it for myself to read today, but I'd rather pay someone else to do it." [3] Google and other aggregators haven't stolen any value from the creators of the content they are aggregating -- they have done what intermediaries have always done, which is create new value based on doing for customers what those customers cannot or do not want to do themselves -- the service of sorting through all that content to find the thing that solves their problem. (I use "problem" loosely -- it may be boredom, loneliness, a tax audit, an idea for a first date,...) Again I'll return to Kevin Kelly, who elucidated the role of aggregators in relation to content creators far more eloquently than I ever could:
The giant aggregators such as Amazon and Netflix make their living in part by helping the audience find works they love. They bring out the good news of the "long tail" phenomenon, which we all know, connects niche audiences with niche productions. But sadly, the long tail is only good news for the giant aggregators, and larger mid-level aggregators such as publishers, studios, and labels. The "long tail" is only lukewarm news to creators themselves. But since findability can really only happen at the systems level, creators need aggregators. This is why publishers, studios, and labels (PSL) will never disappear. They are not needed for distribution of the copies (the internet machine does that). Rather the PSL are needed for the distribution of the users' attention back to the works. From an ocean of possibilities the PSL find, nurture and refine the work of creators that they believe fans will connect with. Other intermediates such as critics and reviewers also channel attention. Fans rely on this multi-level apparatus of findability to discover the works of worth out of the zillions produced. There is money to be made (indirectly for the creatives) by finding talent. For many years the paper publication TV Guide made more money than all of the 3 major TV networks it "guided" combined. The magazine guided and pointed viewers to the good stuff on the tube that week. Stuff, it is worth noting, that was free to the viewers. There is little doubt that besides the mega-aggregators, in the world of the free many PDLs will make money selling findability -- in addition to the other generative qualities.
I love his metaphor of the internet machine ("a very large device that copies promiscuously and constantly"), and it's one worth keeping in mind if you think you're in the business of selling "content," because you are probably wrong.
Update: Jim Lichtenberg kindly reminded me he gave a presentation [PPT] on the same topic at the 2008 TOC Conference. Worth a read.
1. Many publishers have actually been doing the same thing for years with hardcover, trade, and mass-market editions of the exact same content at different prices.
2. This is why celebrity chefs aren't particularly worried that doing TV shows and selling cookbooks describing exactly how to make the food they serve in their restaurants will harm business.
3. There are people who do in fact want to pay someone to write content for them as a service. They're called publishers.
Expectation of Fair Pricing, Not Free
Peter Brantley
February 23, 2009
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At Dear Author, a post stating that not all content should be expected to be free; rather it must be provided, free or not, in a realistic understanding of consumer needs and expectations, which might mean changing the way you do business.
What content providers must realize is that a changing business model wherein revenues are no longer captured in the same way does not mean that content is not without value or that people will not pay, in some way, to use that content. I think many people recognize that in order to have worthwhile content, we must pay in some way for it. Consumers have reduced the value of the album, but have not determined that music itself is without value. Consumers might believe that digital books have reduced cost given the costs of production, distribution and warehousing; but it is not our belief that books are without value altogether or that all books must be provided for free. I think what consumers are looking for is a fair trade. Content creators provide the best content they possibly can and for a fair price allow the consumers to utilize it in the way that it fits into their lives.
The Realities of Big Web Traffic and Advertising
Mac Slocum
December 18, 2008
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Major news sites that rely on advertising as their primary revenue stream need to log hundreds of millions of page views per month to attract significant attention from advertisers, according to a new report from Lauren Rich Fine, research director of ContentNext.
From Advertising Age:
"Based on our research, the conversation [with advertisers] gets interesting at 200 million page views plus a month, but much more so around 800 million," Ms. Fine writes ...
... The report also looks at whether the [New York] Times could ever succeed as a web-only product, and concludes that it could -- once NYT.com starts generating 1.3 billion page views a month.
(Note: Advertising Age cites ComScore Media Metrix figures that put the Times' traffic at 173 million page views in October, but the Times communications department says this figure is very low).
Traffic estimates in the hundreds of millions and billions are a shock to the system, but they're nothing new. Jeremy Liew analyzed the online media industry in early 2007 (a time when Web advertising was still enjoying double-digit growth) and concluded:
At large scale, without a great deal of targeting possible, a startup's "run of site" or "run of network" advertising might be able to get to the $1 RPM range (Revenue per thousand impressions, including CPM, CPC, and CPA models). To get to $50m in revenue you would need 50 billion pageviews in a year, or just over 4 billion per month.
This type of analysis -- which is certainly on target -- is why it's important for publishers to acknowledge the reality of Web advertising by addressing two deeper questions:
1. Can I reach sustainability faster by aggregating advertising across sites or building a smaller organization? -- Limited choice shoehorns audiences into large groups, but the Web disrupts channel lock-in by allowing individual consumers to find material on their own terms. Big organizations are in trouble because the transition from limited channels to distributed channels means audiences are smaller (ie: 1 million vs. 10 million, 100,000 vs. 1 million, etc). There's still significant value in reaching 1 million people, or even 100,000 people, but smaller audiences attract less advertising revenue. So the challenge is to either scale businesses down so audience size, advertising dollars and sustainability even out, or, aggregate advertising revenue from a large number of targeted sites. Both options are arduous, but both are also realistic. Finding and maintaining billions of page views per month is not (the New York Times being the exception here).
2. Can I diversify beyond advertising? -- Ad-only Web models are inherently flimsy because the thing advertisers want is the thing most Web sites can't attract: huge crowds. A lot of lip service has been paid to the Web's targeting argument -- and in Google's case, that's proven effective and lucrative -- but the analysis from Fine and Liew shows that advertisers still can't shake that "big crowd" mentality. So if that's the reality, advertising needs to become one revenue stream among others.
Folks like Mike Masnick, Clay Shirky, Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson have addressed these "other" revenue steams at length (all are recommended reading), but the abridged analysis of their work generally comes down to one word: scarcity. Digital content is not scarce. It's easy to find, distribute and copy (even if publishers lock it down). Because of this, audiences don't often equate "digital content" with "pay." Publishers can fight consumer expectation by creating artificial scarcity (DRM, pay walls for general content), but that same energy is better directed toward products that are naturally scarce: things that solve a problem (recommendations, education), offer an experience (readings, concerts, trips, conferences), grant access (consulting, POD for out of print titles), save time (curated information), and offer value on an individual basis (customization). All of these are outside publishers' comfort zones and none are guaranteed to catch on, but models that work in conjunction with the digital world offer a better shot at sustainability than those built on artificial limits and unrealistic audience sizes.
Change Always Leaves Someone Behind
Mac Slocum
November 11, 2008
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Seth Godin discusses the realities of digital change and free distribution in an interview with HarperStudio's The 26th Story:
... the market and the internet don't care if you make money. That's important to say. You have no right to make money from every development in media, and the humility that comes from approaching the market that way matters. It's not "how can the market make me money" it's "how can I do things for this market." Because generally, when you do something for an audience, they repay you. The Grateful Dead made plenty of money. Tom Peters makes many millions of dollars a year giving speeches, while books are a tiny fraction of that. Barack Obama used ideas to get elected, book royalties are just a nice side effect. There are doctors and consultants who profit from spreading ideas. Novelists and musicians can make money with bespoke work and appearances and interactions. And you know what? It's entirely likely that many people in the chain WON'T make any money. That's okay. That's the way change works.
(Via Differences & Repetitions and Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter Stream.)
Calling Out Risk-Averse Publishers
Mac Slocum
October 2, 2008
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Bloomsbury Academic is testing the theory that increased awareness from free distribution boosts book sales. The recently-launched imprint is releasing all of its titles online under a Creative Commons license while also selling print-on-demand editions. Discussing the rationale with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bloomsbury's Frances Pinter cites the unnecessary chasm between envelope-pushers and conservative publishers:
"I'm tired of the divide between open-access people who have nothing but disdain for publishers, and publishers who don't really know how to take a few risks and try some new models," she said. She would like Bloomsbury Academic to demonstrate that publishers can add editorial value to scholarship without having to choose between locking it down or giving it all away.
Taking the Leap into All-POD
Mac Slocum
September 30, 2008
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James Bridle has launched Bookkake, a print-on-demand (POD) publisher focusing on transgressive literature. From booktwo.org:
... Bookkake is not in the fortune-building or the fortune-breaking business. Print-on-demand and direct sales mean that we cut out much of the warehousing, distribution, and discounting costs that are currently causing so much trouble in the trade. Order a book from the Bookkake website and it is printed and shipped directly to you.
POD editions can be ordered in the UK and US with free shipping. In addition, all Bookkake titles are available as free ebooks in DRM-free PDF, EPUB and MIDP formats:
... I firmly believe that by supplying interesting readers with the best version of what they can get elsewhere for free, I'll be rewarded with customer appreciation and loyalty.
TOC Recommended Reading
Mac Slocum
September 25, 2008
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Direct-To-Fan: Radiohead, Marillion And The End Of Labels (Robert Andrews, paidContent.org)
80s rock group Marillion, hardly a Top 10 draw nowadays, engages its fans so closely that they funded its latest album to the tune of £360,000. Erik Nielsen, who masterminded the strategy as MD of Marillion's Intact Records business arm, told our London EconMusic conference: "About a decade ago, we set out to release the bonds of the record companies over the artists. We worked out that we needed 5,000 fans to finance an album - when 12,000 did, we thought 'well, we can do this now'. We've continued to do that since 1999." By releasing the digital version of that album specifically on to P2P networks this month - "just to see what might happen, because we knew it was going to happen anyway" - the band has tripled its normal sales of physical deluxe copies.
State of the Blogosphere: The How of Blogging (Technorati)
One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week. The most influential bloggers are even more prolific. Using Technorati Index data, we analyzed the posting and tagging behaviors of bloggers according to their Technorati Authority. Over half of the Technorati top authority bloggers post five or more times per day, and they are twice as likely to tag their blog posts compared to other bloggers.
Why the Financial Times can charge for metered content (Jason Preston, Eat Sleep Publish)
Those people who are just passing through and "joining the conversation" can be given free access, while those people who are your actual customers will be asked to pay for their content. By metering their content instead of simply throttling it like the New York Times did, FT is able to keep their content out from behind a wall while still charging for it. [Emphasis included in original post.]
TOC Recommended Reading
Mac Slocum
August 28, 2008
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Transforming American Newspapers (Part 1) (Vin Crosby, Digital Deliverance)
Contrary to myopia of many newspaper executives, advertisers aren't newspapers' primary customers. Although advertising revenues may be sunshine for newspaper executives, the roots of their business are readers. A newspaper with readers will attract advertisers but a newspaper without readers will not. Readers ultimately support and sustain the newspaper business.
(Via E-Media Tidbits)
The Customer is Always Wrong (Richard Nash, Ecstatic Days)
... there is a real tendency in our business to treat the customer as this perverse, mysterious, gullible, arrogant, narrow-minded, slightly thick, imperceptive lug. We largely talk down to him, dumb down for her, expect the least, fear the worst, and generally leave it up to the retailer to figure out how to reach him or her -- we'll get the book onto their shelves, we'll pay them some payola, and then it's their problem. Of course it's not, and not just because we're in the only business where 100% of the product can be returned for full credit. It's because fundamentally a publisher's job is to connect the writer to the reader. Not the book to the retailer, but the writer to the reader. (Via Jose Alonso Furtado's Twitter stream)
On Writing For "Free" (John Scalzi, Whatever)
... the point to make, again, is that "free to the reader" is not the same as "unpaid to the writer." I have gotten paid for the fiction I've put online. I do get paid for it. And, barring a sudden windfall of cash that obviates the need of me having to worry about money ever again, I will continue to make sure I get paid for it. And naturally I encourage other writers to make sure their own economic interests are served when they have stuff put online that is free for readers to view.
(Via TechDirt)
Author Paulo Coelho Illustrates the Upside of Openness
Mac Slocum
August 7, 2008
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Budding authors may not be able to duplicate the success of Paulo Coelho, but Coelho's willingness to experiment across mediums is certainly worth studying. From Jeff Jarvis' Guardian column:
Coelho is the thoroughly modern author. But he still believes in print. For him, this isn't a matter of print v digital. It's a question of what comes when you add digital to print. What does it bring him? "It gives me a lot of joy," he said, "because writing is something you do alone." He recalled the night in 2006 when he read that he had become the second best-selling author in the world. He was bursting. "My God, my wife is sleeping. How can I share this news with anybody?" Now he can shout it from the mountaintop of his blog.
Coelho's embrace of digital outlets is liberal, even by Web standards. In addition to his blogging and social media efforts, Coelho set up a site that aggregates P2P links to free (pirated) versions of his books. He briefly discusses his P2P moves in a New Statesman column:
... I knew from previous experience that the free-sharing of my book over the internet would increase its visibility, so I didn't hesitate to post it on peer-to-peer websites and on my blog.
The more I've ventured into the virtual world, the more I have realised that the internet has a logic of its own and its credo is: share everything freely.
Report: Radiohead Experiment Yields Indirect Success
Mac Slocum
August 4, 2008
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Much of the analysis around Radiohead's "pay what you like" experiment focused on the average price paid for the band's 2007 release, In Rainbows. But a new research report (PDF) from the MCPS-PRS Alliance takes a different approach:
... did the project succeed in diverting traffic away from venues where the band receives nothing, and towards a venue where it could receive something, be it the currency of cash or (at least) an email address?
Will Page and Eric Garland, the authors of the report, offer a two-part conclusion. First, luring people away from their chosen outlets is a significant challenge:
The venue hypothesis suggests that even when the price approaches zero, all other things being equal, people are more likely to act habitually (say, using The Pirate Bay) than to break their habit (say, visiting www.InRainbows.com). The implication of this 'venue hypothesis' is that if you wish the customer to deviate from his habitual action (and try a new venue), then you must offer him an improved venue, at least in his perception. [Emphasis included in report.]
Second, the massive publicity Radiohead received from the experiment likely diverted some customers from file sharing sites. In this case, "some" traffic diversion is enough to claim success:
Let's break it down real simple and treat torrent sites like a local bar, where curious consumers can enter and leave a venue of their choice anonymously, and found 'In Rainbows' to be the guest ale at the time -- and popular it was too, more popular than going anywhere else, like visiting the brewery where it originated from. Whilst the stand alone brewery did lots of new business thanks to the promotion, all the bars up and down the country did even more business. Hence the twist to our answer -- in that it is possible to redirect traffic back to your site, as well as bring new addition traffic to the torrents.
It's a murky outcome, to be sure, but Eliot Van Buskirk from Wired's Listening Post says publicity from Radiohead's experiment and the exposure In Rainbows received via official and unofficial downloads helped propel the band's traditional album and ticket sales:
All of this torrenting of In Rainbows contributed to the album making such a big impression on a listening public that's bombarded with an ever-increasing amount of information. Without its album being so widely traded, would Radiohead's album have shot to the top of the charts? Would their worldwide tour be such a smashing success? ... Not necessarily, says the report, and we agree.
Sorting through these types of reports is an arduous process because the permutations and relationships within the file sharing universe work against firm conclusions. Nonetheless, there are key takeaways:
- Page and Garland's "venue hypothesis" is worth serious consideration in any file sharing experiment. Depending on the desired outcome (i.e. general publicity vs. trackable/marketable data), going where the people already are could be smarter than luring an audience to a new destination.
- A "rising tide lifts all boats" gameplan isn't ideal, but it's suitable when you're up against an inherently murky landscape.
- Finally, the quality of the content is, and always will be, the driver of interest. Alternative distribution boosted awareness for In Rainbows, but chart success and sold out concerts were the end results of good material. Put another way: attention is most valuable when consumers bond with the content.
Tor.com Woos Sci-Fi Fans with Free Ebooks
Mac Slocum
July 23, 2008
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Taking a page from the Baen playbook, Tor.com, a division of Macmillan, is giving away 24 science fiction ebook titles through July 27. The ebooks are available in PDF, HTML and Mobi formats.
News Roundup: New Kindles Rumored, Free Ebooks with Embedded Google Ads, Web Publicity and Giveaways Boost Author's Profile
Mac Slocum
July 18, 2008
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Rumor: Two New Kindles Coming This Fall
Citing an inside source, CrunchGear says Amazon will release two new Kindles in time for the holiday season:
The first is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface ... The second new model, which is shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model. (Continue reading)
Free Ebooks with Embedded Ads Via Scribd-Lulu Partnership
Scribd and Lulu have joined forces to combine Scribd's iPaper format, a Flash-derived viewing technology optimized for bandwidth and speed, with Lulu content. From ReadWriteWeb:
Beginning this month on the self-publishing site Lulu.com, you will soon find a broad selection of some of the site's most popular free content made available via the iPaper format ... And thanks to iPaper's ability to embed [Google] AdSense ads within the documents, content creators will now have a way to offer free e-books that also have the potential to earn them an income.
Web Publicity + Free = A Fighting Chance
Sci-fi author Scott Sigler uses podcasts, giveaways and grassroots Web marketing to build interest in his work. We've covered Sigler in the past, but his recent interview with The Independent illustrates the value lesser-known writers can derive from Web-based brand building and free distribution:
Sigler's thinking -- and this is the revolutionary bit -- is that it's worth making commercial sacrifices to secure a fan base, because fans will always want physical copies of the books, even if they've already heard an audio version for free. (Continue reading)
Web Publicity + Free = A Fighting Chance
Mac Slocum
July 16, 2008
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Sci-fi author Scott Sigler uses podcasts, giveaways and grassroots Web marketing to build interest in his work. We've covered Sigler in the past, but his recent interview with The Independent illustrates the value lesser-known writers can derive from Web-based brand building and free distribution:
Sigler's thinking -- and this is the revolutionary bit -- is that it's worth making commercial sacrifices to secure a fan base, because fans will always want physical copies of the books, even if they've already heard an audio version for free.
"The only way to get people's attention these days is to give them something for free," Sigler says. "If someone walks into a bookstore, why would they pick up a Scott Sigler when there's a Stephen King? They won't. So I give my content away, give readers a chance to try it for free. And if they like my stuff, then guess what: they'll go out and buy the book."
Free Ebooks with Embedded Ads Via Scribd-Lulu Partnership
Peter Brantley
July 16, 2008
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Scribd and Lulu have joined forces to combine Scribd's iPaper format, a Flash-derived viewing technology optimized for bandwidth and speed, with Lulu content. From ReadWriteWeb:
Beginning this month on the self-publishing site Lulu.com, you will soon find a broad selection of some of the site's most popular free content made available via the iPaper format ... And thanks to iPaper's ability to embed [Google] AdSense ads within the documents, content creators will now have a way to offer free e-books that also have the potential to earn them an income.
Artist Brand Building: An Idea Born from Free Debate's Middle Ground
Mac Slocum
July 10, 2008
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Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur and a critic of free models, says publishers can carve a niche by helping writers build their personal brands. From The Bookseller:
Keen said that publishers should not be seduced by the new technologies but use them to build brands, and nurture the expert through live events. "The future is the expert," he said. It was no longer about the copy, the selling of the book, Keen said, but about managing the talent. Addressing publishers, he said, "you are the nurturers of talent, and you will have to convince the creatives that you can build their brand."
Free model advocate Mike Masnick has been pushing a similar "big business as brand builder" option for record companies:
Some musicians can try to go it alone, but for many it doesn't make sense. These new business models still require plenty of business smarts and the ability to do marketing -- and that will require experts in those areas. It's just that the expertise needs to be in applying those skills to the new business models (using the content as promotional material and selling scarce goods), rather than the old model.
I find it interesting that the diametrically opposed Keen and Masnick and both discussing similar solutions for traditional content companies. Perhaps the middle ground of the free debate is where the fertile ideas lie.
Will Magazines Go Free?
Peter Brantley
June 30, 2008
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Jennifer Armor, audit manager at Verified Audit Circulation, makes the case for free magazines. From Folio:
Because of the increasing price of paper and postage, Armour said, the cost of acquiring and keeping paid circ is becoming too high compared to the revenue it generates, and therefore, consumer publications will eventually move to a controlled circ model. Only magazines with premium content that can't be found elsewhere will be able charge their readers.
Using the Psychology of Free
Mac Slocum
June 25, 2008
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A recent piece in the New York Times notes that Google and Yahoo have mined the combined power of "free" and "good enough" to challenge high-priced financial information services from Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg:
Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg face common enemies in sites like Yahoo Finance and Google Finance, which offer a much lower level of sophistication and depth but are improving and are, after all, free. [Emphasis added.]
This passage touches on the psychology of free, which is one of the most interesting but under-examined aspects of the free meme. Getting something for nothing activates a human response that's different from a normal business transaction -- it just feels better. Perhaps it's the novelty of acquiring without a concession (financial or otherwise), or maybe we're just hardwired to love free stuff.
Understanding this psychology even in a basic way (which is all I claim to know) gives free models more lift. In simple terms: A free product comes with low expectations ("hey, it's free!") and neutral perceptions ("what's the worst that can happen?"). If that product proves useful, expectations are exceeded and perception elevates from neutral to positive ("it's free and it's cool/useful/interesting, etc.").
On the development side, a free product doesn't need to be deep, robust or even fully formed. For example: A high-priced pay-to-access version of Google Docs would have invited negative comparisons to established word processing programs, but free access allowed Google Docs to be accepted as a useful Web tool with a surprising number of features, particularly for a free application.
If you extend free psychology into the publishing realm ... a publisher can use free, no-frills content to build buzz around a particular author, title or topic. This could take the form of HTML-based books hosted on a publisher's site, or basic ebooks with minimal production. And if this free material offers readers even a modicum of enjoyment, neutrality turns to positivity and the overall impression of that author, title or topic grows stronger.
These rudimentary musings on free psychology might seem obvious, but the equation of free + good enough = improved chance of success is often obscured by concerns over reliable revenue streams and clear business models (which is understandable since both are in short supply in the free universe). But this equation -- and the opportunities that come with it -- is built on the deeper psychological aspects at play in free models, and it's these aspects that need to be examined before any free-related decisions are made. A project's real upside may lie in its ability to create emotional responses, and a free mechanism could be the catalyst for those reactions.
Putting Ebook Piracy into Perspective
Mac Slocum
June 10, 2008
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Adam Engst from TidBits offers a comprehensive rebuttal to David Pogue's concerns about ebook piracy. Among the many notable points:
... the harder you make it for someone to buy an easily replicated digital commodity, the more likely they are to share that commodity as a way of making things easier for others. Look at the parallels in the music industry. Apple made legitimate purchases of music both easy and inexpensive via the iTunes Store, and anyone who was on the fence about whether it was acceptable to share music suddenly had a viable alternative. Providing a legitimate purchase path for electronic versions not only generates revenue, but also reduces illicit copying.
The teeth gnashing associated with publishing's transition to digital continues to obscure an important -- and simple -- point: publishing isn't the first industry to confront digital issues. Businesses in the music, film and media worlds have been tackling these concerns for years, and there are important lessons to be learned from their failures and successes.
Engst's argument about ease of use -- especially as it relates to iTunes -- deftly illustrates this. Regardless of your opinion of iTunes and Apple, it's hard to argue with the equation they've developed: make money by giving people easy access to quality digital material. This trail has already been blazed; publishers just need to pay attention.
On another topic ... Pogue's post cites two examples of scammers who, posing as blind readers, requested book PDFs and then copied them to piracy sites within 48 hours. Engst's experience with piracy is considerably different:
I have found our ebooks available for download on a handful of occasions; each time it was someone who had put the file on a server without realizing it was open to the public or who was transferring the book from work to home and had forgotten to take it down. I periodically search the file sharing services too, but it's exceedingly rare to find any of our ebooks there, and those I have seen were wildly out of date.
In short, far from the foregone conclusion that publishing an electronic book will result in rampant copying, our years of experience show just the opposite.
Engst notes that his company's subject matter (tech) and its size (small) likely minimize piracy, but there's an underlying point in this passage that's relevant on an industry-wide scale: blanket statements about the ills of piracy -- or the opportunities from piracy -- fail to recognize the nuances at play.
Whether we're discussing Pogue's run-in with "blind" con artists or Engst's limited issues with accidental piracy, it's important to remember that singular examples do not define trends (or unmask ebook cabals). Publishers need to look at ebook distribution, and the potential for piracy, on a case-by-case basis. To paraphrase Tim O'Reilly, certain titles from certain authors may benefit from increased exposure of any sort (that's the idea behind this experiment), but well-known authors with blockbuster titles might be undercut by widespread copying.
When it comes to piracy, free, and other unusual models, the only real mistake is embracing a closed-minded, all-or-nothing perspective. Doing so limits both the threats and the opportunities.
Engst's post touches on a variety of other piracy-related topics, all of which are worth considering.
Treating Ebooks Like Software
Mac Slocum
June 5, 2008
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Peter Kent, DNAML's senior vice president for U.S. operations, brings a software-centric perspective to ebooks. In the following Q&A, Kent discusses the merits of in-book transactions, affiliate marketing, and other digital initiatives that can benefit book publishers.
Q: In your presentation at last month's IDPF Digital Book '08 you discussed treating ebooks like software. Do you feel the software model is directly related to ebooks, or are there specific aspects of the software model ("try before you buy" trialware, download ebooks through multiple outlets, etc.) that are more in line with ebook/publishing goals?
Not sure of the distinction you're making here. I think that there's much about software distribution that applies to ebooks, and why not? Ebooks are, of course, pieces of software. In particular, providing ebooks in a trialware format makes a lot of sense, and is a proven model. That's why Amazon let's people view a portion of a book, that's why Barnes & Noble likes having people in their stores hanging out reading. And of course, download through multiple outlets makes a lot of sense, too. Why wouldn't you distribute your products as widely as possible? If trialware works -- and it does -- then you naturally want as many people as possible to get the books in their hands. The large, established publishers are going to have a shock when they see the new book-distribution world. It's no longer a gentleman's game in which everyone hands over their books to a bookstore, and then they all compete on the same level. In the future the more aggressive publishers are going to go out and find book buyers even before the buyers have thought about buying!
Q: Do publishers focus too much on the "book" aspect of ebooks? Would a shift toward a file/software perspective open things up?
Some do. The more advanced publishers understand what's going on, but I do think there's still a bias toward the old method of distributing books: give your books to a retailer who puts the books on shelves. Certainly up until recently most publishers have had the idea in their mind that in order to sell ebooks they have to create the ebooks and then give them to Amazon and other retailers to sell. Little thought has gone into new methods of distribution. What may save the publishers is that new distributors will come on the scene: distributors who understand the new landscape and go out and push the books.
Q: Are ebooks available through sites like Download.com, Tucows.com and other software-specific hubs? If not, should they be?
You can already find ebooks in many software download sites, though most do not yet have specific ebook categories. ZDNet's download site doesn't have an ebook category, for instance, though it does have an ebook "tag." Download.com has a music category and a games category, why wouldn't they have a book category? Of course they will eventually, as more and more books become available. But one thing holding back the creation of ebook categories is that only free books, or trialware books, will fit. Once books from major publishers are commonly sold as trialware, you'll see the download sites pay more attention.
Q: What about ebook availability through P2P sites/mechanisms, such as BitTorrent?
Trialware books are perfect for this form of distribution.
Q: In your conversations with publishers and others in the industry, do you feel most people understand the basics of internal ebook transactions and affiliate tagging? How do you describe these concepts to newcomers?
Most publishers haven't the slightest idea about this. When I ask publishers "do you know what affiliate marketing is?" I typically get a response such as "um, well ...". So if they don't understand what affiliate marketing is, they certainly don't understand affiliate tagging. This isn't true of all publishers; Harlequin, for instance, is really good at online marketing, and certainly understands affiliate-marketing well.
So, how do I explain these things? Well, by internal transactions, I mean that each ebook is its own shopping-cart system. You reach a point inside the book that you cannot get past without paying. You enter your credit card information into the book itself (though the actual form is retrieved from a server so, for instance, the book price can be changed at any time), and when you submit your card and it's approved, the server automatically unlocks the book, so you can continue reading.
As for affiliate tagging, this is the ability to add a code to each book you distribute -- one code for each specific distribution channel -- so the publisher or distributor knows where that book came from. If you distribute through Web Site A, 10,000 people download the book, and 500 buy it, you know that those 500 people came from Web Site A. If you put the book in a magazine insert, 100,000 people buy the magazine, 10,000 copy the book to their computers, and 500 buy it, then you know that those 500 customers came from that particular magazine insert. Thus you can pay the right company the required affiliate commissions.
So these two components, along with the ability to partially lock a book, allow you to create trialware books -- try-before-you-buy books -- that can be distributed widely, through many different channels.
Q: Is there an opportunity for competing publishers to generate affiliate revenue by selling other publishers' books?
Absolutely! Books can be bundled within books -- certainly our DNL format allows this -- so a publisher might bundle several locked books at the end of the book. Those books might belong to the publisher or, in appropriate cases, from another publisher. In particular, of course, small publishers could benefit from these sorts of relationships with other publishers.
Q: What is the upside of "try before you buy" in ebooks?
A try-before-you-buy book with built-in transaction processing, and built-in affiliate tagging, opens up a whole new world of distribution options. All of a sudden, the book can go anywhere. Sell computer books? Talk with computer manufacturers about putting your books on the desktop of every new computer sold, and talk to software manufacturers about bundling the books in their software downloads. Sell photography books? Put them on the software CDs inside digital-camera packaging. Sell wine books? Give away try-before-you-buy books on wine Web sites. Science fiction novels? Give books away on fan sites. Those three things -- try-before-you-buy, internal transaction processing, and affiliate tagging -- free books from ecommerce Web sites, and provide almost limitless marketing opportunities.
Q: What viral/social aspects does your company include in ebooks? (Email to a friend, etc.)
We include Email-to-a-Friend, of course. If you try a book, like it, and buy it, that book is now unlocked. But if you email it to a friend or colleague, when it lands on the recipient's computer it's now locked. Word of mouth is hugely important in book sales; it always has been. Email-to-a-Friend is essentially a modern-day word-of-mouth feature. We also allow people to share notes. Members of a book club could highlight areas of the books, add notes, then email the highlights and notes to each other. Members can import these things, and see who said what based on the name at the top of the notes.
Q: Are ebook giveaways useful?
Of course. Companies such as Harlequin use giveaways to build interest. I think, though, that these giveaways will get more sophisticated, as publishers learn more about try-before-you-buy books. For instance, if you're giving away a book, you're hoping that the reader will come to your site and buy another one at some point. But why not create a giveaway book, a single file, that includes a book for sale at the end of the free book? Or several books from which the reader can choose?
Q: Do you recommend user tracking and registration? How in-depth should this tracking/registration be?
Of course you want as much information as possible; we're in business, after all, so we need to create relationships with buyers. Amazon does this. I like to point out to publishers that someone owns the relationship, it's just not them. If you sell photography books and someone buys one of your books through Amazon today, tomorrow Amazon will start promoting other photography books to this buyer. Some of these books will be yours, perhaps, but most won't! So Amazon's tracking, and Amazon's benefiting. Publishers are going to learn to do the same for themselves, and some already are.
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