maggie+media

Fred Wilson on “Style, Design, and Voice: The Merging of Content With Technology”

Fred Wilson spoke to The Publishing Point yesterday about the intersection of content and technology. The talk was inspiring—full of interesting points and observations. Here are my key takeaways. (Debbie Stier also shared some on her blog.)

The media landscape is constantly changing: Yes, we already knew this, but Fred’s talk drove home just how true it is. He talked about social media he uses to discover new content (boxee, WeAreHunted) which I was only vaguely aware of, but which will undoubtedly grow in importance. Lesson? The time you spend reading about technology and innovation is time well spent. The future is here already, always.

Discovery beyond search: Social networks have radically changed the way we discover content. Fred noted that consuming content in a vacuum no longer feels natural to him (or anyone younger than he is)—they want to share it. But with so many people sharing so much online—300 million+ on Facebook alone—the value of the individual share has decreased. Enter filters, which give added value to select shares based on popularity and/or quality (like Twitter’s promoted tweets system). For instance, Fred’s favorite news source is Hacker News, curated entirely by users. Traditional curators—publishers!—take note.

Liquidity and protection: “People who want to steal your content will steal your content. DRM is a tax on your best customers.” So true. The way to avoid Napster syndrome? Be aggressive. License your content and get it out there legally. People are willing to pay for quality content—Fred’s a big fan of subscription models—but the creators need to get their content discovered and to show readers why they should value it. There’s no better way to start than to get your books—and your brand—out there.

Do it now: More than anything Fred’s talk reminded me of the need to act now. Publishers shouldn’t be afraid of technologists—as Fred said, they don’t know how to create good content. Publishers do. But when they refuse to participate fully in the social web, they hide that fact from, well, everyone. It’s time to focus on where publishers really add value in a digital, linked world and streamline the rest. I think there will always be a market for printed books—collectors, as Fred called them—but the focus of publishing should be on consumers (who no longer need to be collectors). We’re not and have never been a printing industry.

With the way we interact with content and each other changing rapidly—every.single.day—asking questions like “will the iPad save publishing?” is a waste of time. Publishers will save themselves by proving their value to readers. And there’s no app for that.

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Were you there? Have thoughts? Let’s talk on Twitter.

SXSWi: A Brave New Future for Book Publishing

(And yes, I realize I am late to the party with this—but what can I say? There was basketball to be watched this week/weekend!)

This panel was the one to which I was most looking forward to. Obviously it’s the most directly relevant to what I do at DailyLit, but as the follow-up to last year’s infamous “New Think for Old Publishers” fiasco, expectations were high.

The panelists—Kassia Kroszer (aka Booksquare), Tor.com’s Pablo Defendini, HarperStudio’s Debbie Stier, Vook’s Matt Cavnar—and moderator Kevin Smokler (Booktour.com) began by touching on the euphemisms used to describe book publishing (“in transition,” anyone?). But then they looked to what’s next. Or, rather, what’s now. The book industry was developed in and for a world that no longer exists. $24.95 hardcovers don’t work in 2010. To the future!

Lots of interesting ideas were tossed around:

• The bookstore of the future: coffee bar, list of staff recommendations, and an Espresso Book Machine?
• Apple’s iPad might be an entry point for casual readers to embrace ebooks (which the Kindle hasn’t done)
• Democratization of content production means everyone is a competitor to legacy publishers—but also potentially a collaborator.

But the main thing I took away from the conversation was the thinking that the book is no longer the end-product. Rather, the author’s brand, her platform, is the “mothership,” the ink-and-paper book being just one offshoot from it. Authors need to bring or build their own followings or tribes a la Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk, and if they can’t publishers should show them how to build one (as HarperStudio does—one of the many reasons they were held up as exemplary publishers).

There seems to be lots of grumbling about the intrusion of this “brand” thinking into publishing, but it seems to me it’s always been there. What are (was) Dickens and John Grisham if not successful “motherships” that spin off books, speaking engagements, plays/movies?

Similarly, what are imprints and publishers if not brands, known for particular kinds of fiction? That’s they—and the industry—perceive of them, anyway, if not exactly readers. Indeed, I think imprints need to more strongly brand their works if they are to thrive in this new, largely vertically-oriented economy (and I’m certainly not the first to say so).

If this all sounds like stuff you’ve heard before, you’re right—there wasn’t anything earth-shattering pronouncements. Instead, this felt like a window into the steady, continual innovation in our industry. In my mind, we’re right on the edge of major change, and these panelists are the ones standing at the precipice and figuring out where to go next, so we aren’t all pushed over the cliff. And with the next year sure to bring continuing economic pressure, publisher innovation, and the rise of the iPad, I’m already looking forward to SXSWi’s publishing panel 2011.

For more: Read Booksquare’s excellent summary of thoughts and themes at SXSW, and GalleyCat’s collection of all the #futurebook tweets.

Another SXSW post to come on Community Management.

SXSWi: What is it good for?

Absolutely everything! This was my first year at SXSW Interactive and I can say it’s the most valuable conference I’ve had the opportunity to attend. I heard interesting speakers and panels, got great new ideas, and met Twitter friends and (former) strangers. It was informative and valuable and inspiring and fun, all the things a good conference should be.

I’ll post some highlights here over the next few days—once I catch up on my work and sleep—but I owe a big thanks to DailyLit for sending me to the conference. What a weekend!

An Ongoing Lack of Imagination in Pricing (of Digital Content)

Interesting post about lack of creativity in digital pricing from Albert Wenger.

continuations:

Yesterday brought two announcements and one rumor that all relate to the pricing of digital content: the New York Times announced that it plans to add a paywall in 2011, Amazon announced that it will offer authors a 70% royalty rate, and book publishers are apparently trying to convince Apple to act as a distributor with prices set by the publishers.  All three of these are interesting and important.

Starting with the last. It appears from the Apple discussions (if the rumor is correct) that publishers still think they can and should price ebooks close to or the same as physical books.  They are freaked out that at lower ebook prices the market would shift more quickly and profits would disappear faster than if they artificially keep ebook prices up.

Amazon is actively trying to subvert this.  They have been selling books on the Kindle for significantly below retail.  Many publishers have tried to argue that this is bad for authors who now receive less money.  But as this latest move by Amazon makes clear, it is all about who gets to keep how much of what consumers pay.  In the traditional publishing model the royalty to authors tends to be in the 20% range.  It is easy to see that at a 70% royalty rate in a direct model an author will make almost twice as much even if the Kindle book sells for half the price.

Still — this amounts to not much more than a fight over the digital pie between publishers, Amazon and Apple.  The discussion is still stuck on a ridiculous holdout from the physical era: charging every customer the same price.  In a post almost a year ago on the economics of abundance, I wrote:

One important alternative that is not receiving nearly enough attention is to stop charging the same price to everyone. In economics this is know as “price discrimination” and there is an extensive literature on when and how it is possible.   For instance, with so-called “perfect” price discrimination everyone would pay exactly what the good is worth to them.

The New York Times is taking a small step in this direction by following the Financial Times strategy of frequency capping visits.  This allows for two possible price points: free, if you use it a few times a year and $x (NYT has not announced a price), if you use it more than that.  It is a feeble attempt to distinguish between folks who value New York Times content a lot and hence visit often and those who don’t.

This is not a bad idea, it is just not a new one and not a particularly powerful one.  The real power is in letting consumers pick their own price.  This has of course long been the case in the not-for-profit world.  If you like NPR you can listen to it for free.  If you like it a lot you can contribute.  There are many different levels of contribution letting you pick just how much you like it!  Kickstarter has done a fantastic job of bringing the same model to the funding of individual projects.

Yet despite such clear examples, Amazon, Apple, the New York Times, book publishers, etc all seem stuck on essentially the one price model.  Can we please have some more imagination in pricing?  It is time to start creating offers that let readers self select based on how much they value specific content.  How would this work?  In the case of the New York Times here is just one of many possible examples.  Put on a weekly series speaker series and make priority access to limited tickets / limited realtime online viewing spots part of a higher priced subscription.

SXSW Bound

It’s official—I’ll be attending SXSW Interactive this March! In case you’re not familiar with it, SXSW is a conference in Austin, Texas bringing together innovators in interactive, design, media, film, and music.

Many publishing folks may know it as the site of last year’s infamous (on Twitter, anyway) “New Think for Old Publishers” panel. Panelists—industry experts—who were supposed to bring the “new think” brought nothing innovative and, instead, seemed to use the session to work the audience for answers to the big question: how can we fix publishing? From Booksquare’s excellent summary:

Let me be clear. Absolutely clear. Not one word spoken in that session, either from the panelists or from the audience, was new or innovative. The panel, well, we’ve all heard job descriptions before. The audience? That was one very long line of people saying the same things we’ve been saying to the publishing industry for ten years. And yet the publishing people treated our comments as if they were items to be added to a list.

There’s another book publishing panel this year, but given the panelists—Kassia Krozser, Kevin Smokler, and Debbie Stier—I already know there will be better book talk coming our of SXSW this time around.

Are you going to SXSW? Let me know!

Publishing 2.0

It’s hard for me to believe but today I’m celebrating two years at DailyLit. I’ve learned a ton and feel fortunate to be working for a forward-thinking company (thanks to our forward-thinking founder, Susan Danziger).

It’s a great time to be working in publishing. On my own blog and elsewhere there have been a lot of recent posts that are optimistic and excited about the future of books and reading. I can’t think of a better moment in which to celebrate my time at DailyLit—and the excitement of what comes next.

A Whole New Ballgame?

Yesterday saw the launch of the Publishing Point, an industry group—originally called the Digital Publishing Group—dedicated to bringing together forward-thinking people in the book industry for education and interaction. The first Publishing Point event also took place yesterday, with Hanny Hindi, a Clickable Guru, speaking to the group about SEM.

I’m lucky enough to have been able to learn about SEO/SEM basics through my job, but nevertheless Hanny’s talk gave me lots to think about. One of the best nuggets I took away from his talk was this statement, roughly paraphrased:

This isn’t totally new. This is still Don Draper stuff—the same marketing questions, the same need for quality campaigns. It’s just a new way to ask those questions, do market research, find and connect with buyers.

With SEM there are terms to learn and new concepts to cover, but fundamentally it’s just marketing—what we’ve been doing for years.

It seems to me this is also an apt and helpful way to think about massive changes that are transforming publishing. So often we—and the press—get taken by hyperbole: we hear that the “death of publishing” is nigh; that the Kindle is a “book-killer.” I don’t think the book will ever die, nor do I think publishing will die.

But what we can—and must—change is how we think about the role of the publisher. People will always want quality content to read, and they value publishers to find that content for them (and they also value “real,” physical books, too). As Craig Newmark said today, it’s about trust and curation, which are the heart of the publisher’s mission. The rest of it—formats, production, returns, pricing—is details, and clinging to the details as we’ve always known them is slowing us down. I don’t mean to downplay how important these “details” are to our industry, nor how big—and sometimes painful—their evolution will be. But they’re not, to return to Hanny’s comparison, the Don Draper stuff. They’re just the packaging.

The name of the game has changed. But it’s not a whole new ballgame. (Plus 10 points for the timely baseball metaphor!)

So let’s stop “being distressed” over digital and figure out how to make publishers’ most valuable asset—their knowledge, taste, and expertise—work in today’s market.

Announcing the Publishing Point

I’ve been working with Susan Danziger and DailyLit for almost two years now (eep!) and today’s one of the most exciting days in all of that time. We’re announcing the formation of a new industry group that seeks to bring exciting thinkers in publishing together, online and in-person, to discuss rapidly changing future of our industry. Here’s the official announcement, including links to our community’s site.

We’re excited to announce the next stage in the evolution of the Digital Publishing Group. Since we launched it six months ago, the group has grown to 300 members from all over the publishing industry, and we’ve received great reviews from such talks by bestselling author Seth Godin; head of digital for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Gail Horwood; the CEO of Lexcycle/Stanza, Neelan Choksi; HarperStudio’s Debbie Stier; and the founder of Tumblr, David Karp. We think the time is now right to build on our success, expand our core mission, widen our range of programs, and build in community tools. Inspired by members’ ideas, we have big plans ahead, plans that we believe make it appropriate to change the name of the group. So say a fond farewell to The Digital Publishing Group and join us in giving a warm welcome to The Publishing Point.

We’d love all of you who’ve joined The Digital Publishing Group via MeetUp (and any of your colleagues/friends) to now become part of our expanded community on Ning. You’ll benefit from being able to communicate with fellow members and learn about all the cool stuff we’re launching. It’s easy to join, and best of all, it’s completely free. You can also follow us on Twitter—@publishingpoint—and tweet about us using the hashtag #pubpt. So here’s our new and improved mission statement:

Publishing today is being transformed. Whether we’re authors, agents, publishers, or booksellers—everything about the way we create, publish, distribute, market, and sell is changing. A transforming industry demands a new type of organization, an organization that supports, encourages and enables change. The Publishing Point is that organization.

What is The Publishing Point? The Publishing Point is a community excited about change, a community that empowers professionals and inspires innovation. The Publishing Point is a forum that recognizes that change comes from all directions—from the bottom, top, inside, and outside our industry. The Publishing Point is a conversation where we share and debate the issues that shape everything we do.

The Publishing Point is about information, education, training, and news; it’s about the ideas and resources for our changing industry. But it’s more than that. The Publishing Point is a movement. A movement for those passionate about change—the changing reader, the changing book, the changing opportunities, and the changing industry.

Be part of the transformation. Be part of the future. Be part of the movement. Be part of The Publishing Point.