maggie+media

Who’s In Charge Here?

Upon hearing news that agency Ogilvy & Mather is prepping to name Lars Bastholm, an insider with digital chops, as the chief creative officer of its New York office, Ad Age asks: Is putting digital experts in the top creative spots the right thing?

I’m not an expert on ad agencies, but haven’t creative directors always needed to have a robust understanding of the media their messages use? Creativity can’t exist in a vacuum, right?

This question reminds me of one of the most (in)famous quotes from last week’s BookExpo America. Speaking on a panel of CEOs discussing the value of a book, Esther Newberg, executive VP of International Creative Management, remarked that one of the nice things about getting old was not having to worry about the resolution of all these arguments—you know, discussions about ebook value, royalties, digital editions, piracy. Shouldn’t those be the very issues that our leaders most aggressively tackle?

Publishing is often referred to as a sinking ship. If that ship is to be righted, we can’t afford to have disengaged people at the helm. As Kassia Kroszer wrote in her recap of the BEA panel, change must begin at home.

My answer to Ad Age’s question, then, is yes. The best leaders are creative thinkers who know their industry inside out—and in media and advertising, that means having serious digital chops.

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.

—

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

Twitter Frequency

I’ve been thinking about publishers (and other folks who market things) on Twitter lately, and I’m clearly not the only one. Follow the Reader just explored which publishers have the best Twitter feeds, and Publishers Weekly compiled a list of “Who’s Got Pull in the Publishing Twitterverse.” Both are worth reading.

Publishers using Twitter was on my mind because my feed had become clogged with SO MANY PROMOTIONAL TWEETS that had CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS and were usually REALLY LONG with #somerandomhashtag. The source? A small number of publishers’ and imprints’ Twitter accounts (hence the caps book titles), as well as other businesses I’m a fan of. I followed them because as book marketing person—and someone who has worked with many of the publishers in question—I wanted to keep up to date on what they were doing. But these tweets weren’t particularly helpful or engaging; they were tons and tons of ADS pure and simple, blared at me without restraint. (And no, I’m not going to single out particular feeds here.) Don’t get me wrong—tweets that are self-promotional are fine, and can be really useful for your followers (they followed you for a reason!), but not when they’re overwhelming.

Twitter serves as a great platform for promotion, but not when it’s used only or primarily as a broadcasting platform: what makes Twitter so powerful is the opportunity for engagement and sharing. It’s a challenge to balance the two, and it’s certainly something I struggle with running the DailyLit Twitter account—which I’m always trying to improve.

Most importantly, though, I’ve been reminded just how important relevancy and frequency are on Twitter. Even if your tweets are fantastic, if they’re clogging someone’s stream (or released all at once) they’ll be annoying; the opposite—bad but sparse tweets—isn’t any better. We should approach Twitter as thoughtfully as any other ad platform. Just because there are only 140 characters doesn’t mean we don’t need to think carefully about what we’re putting out there.

What are your key words for best Twitter practice?

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.

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.