Why digital galleys are not scary

I’m currently working with a product that has, among other features, the capability to send digital advance reading copies to media and reviewers—a concept that they are working diligently to under-emphasize because of the instinctive “that wouldn’t work for us” reaction they have received from media, reviewers and publishers alike.

This is unfortunate and short-sighted. Yes, of course, we aren’t at the point where digital galleys can replace the good, old-fashioned portability of the physical book---for a full read. But outright rejection of the digital underscores the many other ways reviewers and media use content.

Full-text digital galleys are searchable, for one, invaluable for fact checking of reviews and articles. And especially helpful because galleys often are sent without indexes. Publications could benefit from digital galleys when preparing roundups (Essential Cranberry Cooking for the Holidays—New Hot Recipes from 10 New Cookbooks and all). And let’s not forget that for certain types of media, reading the text isn’t essential—a colleague of mine gave me an example of a gossip columnist who might skim or search a text for a reference but whose need for speed would always usurp a full, critical read. Radio and television producers often mine upcoming books for content of interest to their audiences or host, and what better way to pass along a potential find than digitally? For large organizations with multiple levels of approval this is especially salient.

Finally, there is the green element, of some interest as evidenced by BISG’s and Green Press Initiative’s recent U.S. Book Industry Climate Impacts and Environmental Benchmarking Study. What interests me about the green element is the potential for media to use digital galleys to read first chapters, often an essential step in deciding if a book will be reviewed or covered.

Overall, publicity is about selling. Even reviewing, albeit more high-brow, is about recommending worthy reads. Why wouldn’t publishers and media want to share their content faster and more accurately? A production soldier at a major publisher told me that many authors, agents and editors lament the inaccuracy of galleys, since the text often changes between the time the galley goes into print production and is mailed. Digital means capturing a timelier version of the text, and aren’t we all happier for that?

I am not advocating a truly paperless advance publication workflow; that time has not yet come. But as an industry we could be braver about trying digital galleys as a supplement to print. I think the results would be surprising.

Do it Yourself Cookbooks

This morning The NY Times also has a short note on tastebook.com which allows cooks to create their own printed recipe book by downloading up to 100 recipes from epicurious.com.

For $34.95, a cooking enthusiast can select up to 100 recipes, which come encased in a ring-binder with a customized cover. Although TasteBook will not put the customer’s photo on the cover, it does offer a choice of images (a pie, a bowl of cherries, peas in a pod, corn on the cob) and naming rights to the cookbook (like “Emily’s Holiday Recipes”). The site also accommodates those who want to fill a volume with their own recipes or with recipes from sites other than Epicurious.

As I noted last week, SharedBook also launched a similar product with allrecipies.com (Readers Digest) and it is disappointing that the Times didn't look at their product as well.

Regretfully, while the product concept in both applications will be popular the execution in the TasteBook example is less than ideal. For example, the customer has to assemble the product themselves when it arrives in the mail which immediately removes a valuable sense of ownership and customization. Secondly the cover title which you select yourself is stuck on mailing label-like (on the spine as well) and lastly the heavy card binder is likely to come off second best the minute it is set on a wet counter. (Which of course happens all the time). The book does lie flat however which the SharedBook does not; however, I suspect SharedBook will be correcting that soon.

Borders Television

The NYT notes the adoption by Borders of in-store television which will provide book related content and advertising direct to the stores. The provider, Ripple already provides similar services to stores such as Jiffy-Lube and Jack-in-the-Box 'restaurants'. The company notes that the broadcast service is now in 60 stores and will be in 250 by the end of February.

CEO George Jones comments:

Borders customers tend to be “highly educated, more affluent” and spend an average of an hour in the store, making them catnip to many advertisers. “It’s becoming more and more difficult to reach people,” Mr. Jones said. “Newspapers are not as effective as they used to be. Television is not as easily reachable as it used to be. This becomes an attractive option.”

Flat screen video screens in retail are all the rage. Visiting a local Starbucks in the last few months, you will have noted the installation of video screens in their stores. Currently these support the integration with their music content which enables free downloads via iTunes. The video screens are not intrusive but mainly because the content is static: If they begin to offer video content as Borders are suggesting perhaps the vibe of the stores changes to one where you can hold a quiet meeting or take a leisurely break to one where you will be bombarded by advertising messages: The faster pace and the noise causing you to move out of the store faster. It could be unsettling. On the other hand the effort by Borders is an experiment in merchandising that should help the company develop new revenue streams and direct customer awareness of particular products. Jones was asked about the perception that screens could be counter to the store vibe and said,

The screens are “not designed to be intrusive,” Mr. Jones said. Rather, he said, they are “part of a master plan to create content that will do several things for us,” like directing traffic to the Borders Web site and paving the way to more cross-promotional deals with large media companies.

Stay tuned for more changes and experimentation from Borders.

Radiohead: Creepy Stats

Reuters reports that the CD version of the new Radiohead album In Rainbows will be released December 31st. Sometime between then and now they will eliminate the download site so that this option no longer remains although they are likely to use data from the site to promote the purchase of the physical disc. Options being discussed may include allowing a credit against the purchase of the CD based on what was paid for the download to a simple web coupon (10% off for ordering direct) to nothing. If nothing else, the experimentation will continue.

The band also commented to Reuters that the recent speculation regarding how many people visited the site and either did or did not pay was "wholly inaccurate." Furthermore the Band said that the reports "in no way reflect definitive market intelligence or, indeed, the true success of the project."

Stephen Fry Is An Actor

Stephen Fry is as about as likely to be writing a blog about consumerist technology as I am about Opera. Which is pretty unlikely, but one of us is going against presumed character (and it isn't an act and it isn't me).

Stephen Fry has started writing a blog for the Guardian newspaper and the posts are very entertaining. Apparently, it didn't start that way. He initially launched the blog by himself with a 6,000 word (I think) post about his love of all things digital. The Guardian came calling and by the third post he was writing for them as well under the title "Welcome to Dork Talk." How's that for the power of digital media! At times his proselytising for Apple may come across as a cry for help; but, I suspect once the excitement over the launch in Europe of the IPhone dies off he will move on to other matters. (I wonder what he would think of Tivo?)

Here is how he described his viewpoint:

Digital devices rock my world. This might be looked on by some as a tragic admission. Not ballet, opera, the natural world, Stephen? Not literature, theatre or global politics? Even sport would be less mournfully inward and dismally unsociable. Well, people can be dippy about all things digital and still read books, they can go to the opera and watch a cricket match and apply for Led Zeppelin tickets without splitting themselves asunder.

My sentiments exactly. And he is certainly not without an opinion. Here he is reviewing a new mp3 player from Philips:

But that’s of no importance compared with the cheap, clumsy and dreadful nature of the device itself. I wanted to throw it in the ocean after five minutes (I am in America right now), but instead gave it to a friend who threw it away after 10. One knows the instant one plays the bundled video content, a truly pathetic and dated home movie of some dudes skiing, that we are dealing with a dog. The blocky, pixelated images are so poor as to beggar belief (220 x 176 pixels) - and this is the footage that’s meant to show it off!

It gets worse. It has touch controls, but not touch screen. In the desire to jump on Apple’s multitouch bandwagon, Philips have come up with something worse than an old-fashioned knob. The Streamium offers fiddly controls with terrible delay, so you’re always pressing them too often and reversing their function. The sound level is poor and the phones inadequate. The whole thing’s a gift to Apple.

It should prove entertaining reading from a very unlikely source.

Penguin sued Over Dorothy Parker - Update

By way of update, Mr Silverstein has not won the lottery and according to this mornings Telegraph his suit against Penguin has been dismissed. Under the hugely creative headline Poetic Justice, the Telegraph reports that Pearson prevailed in this six year battle. I suspect that Mr. Silverstein is going to have some significant legal expenses to pay.

This is my original post from September:

Mild embarassment could ensue if Penguin were to loose a copyright suit over a compilation of poems the publisher produced in 1999. The wheels of justice appear to move slowly but the story is as follows. One Stewart Silverman took a project to Penguin which they turned down because they didn't agree to Silverman's format choice. Silverman went ahead and published it with Scribner. Three years later Penguin published its own selection of 'lost' Parker poems which Silverman believes was a verbatim version of his own work. Final deliberations are supposed to begin on October 9th in New York.

Penguin's argument hangs on the belief that they owe Silverman nothing for the material they published since all the Parker works were in the public domain. As such, the works are not covered by copyright. The Silverman camp suggests that he asserted copyright to the compilation and that this fact was clearly noted when he originally went to Penguin with the project. The judge will decide the result, but on the witness stand John Makinson, Penguin CEO did admit:

''I think it would have been more appropriate to have given some attribution to Mr Silverstein for those poems; it's just a personal opinion that I have based on my reading of the situation subsequent to my deposition in the initial case here."

Silverstein is looking for $1,00,000 in punitive damages.

Telegraph

A Future of Publishing

There is an interesting series of posts on MJ Rose's Buzz, Balls & Hype site about the (a) future of publishing. The series of three guest posts are written by Barry Eisler who is an author but despite that has some very interesting ideas about how the business will change and evolve. I suspect he will have something to say about my comments as well.

Here is a taste from Barry's first post:

I don't think the abandonment of record labels by two of pop's biggest stars is an aberration. And I don't think the implications of this development will be confined to the music biz. Look a little more closely, and you'll see a common element among media companies -- that is, record labels, movie studios, the newspaper business, and book publishers -- and a common dynamic.

My retort on post one:

With respect to the movie industry you haven't taken the example far enough. About ten years ago all movie distribution companies were gung ho about satellite distribution to movie houses. It would avoid shipping film reels, errors and delays and importantly enabled better accounting so houses could no longer cheat on showings. It failed because the houses saw nothing in it for them against the significant capital improvements they would have to make. Move ahead 10 years and we are again talking about digital distribution but the landscape is significantly different. As consumers we can all get new 50in flat screen TVs in our homes and we don't need a movie house any longer. (And there aren't enough of them any way). It is only a matter of time before first run movies are distributed direct to consumers together with consumer (behavioral) ad placement. Ergo: very flat distribution.

With respect to books/publishing, in my view we won't even remember the espresso machine in three years. Led by the iPhone, consumers will consume more and more books on these handheld platforms and 'vending' locations will be ubiquitous (including B&N etc.) E-books will not replace hardcopy books in total. They may replace trade paper in dramatic fashion over the next five years. (I will make another point on your next post about retail). The Espresso machine is impressive technology and will retain a place in libraries and academia but I see us the typical high street consumer skipping over the on-demand opportunity of printed works to simply e-content on a handheld.

And all this from someone who only buys hardcover titles and collects first editions!

Barry from post two:

B&N and Borders both publish their own books. True, the titles in question are mostly self-help, public domain, and other perennially-selling categories. But in June, Borders published Slip and Fall, a hardback novel by Nick Santora that's available nowhere else. Slip and Fall is a classic case of middleman elimination. I don't know the financial details, but I know the dynamic that drove the deal: Santora gets to keep more than the 15% of the price of each book he would have received from a traditional publisher, and Borders keeps more than the 40% it would have kept after paying a traditional publisher 60% of the retail price.

My retort:

The 'success of Slip and Fall' has more to do with consumers entering Border's with no clue what they are going to purchase (and research bares this out) than it does with a new found business model. In fact, as seller of anything I want to be in as any appropriate retail outlets as possible and while it may be seductive to have an exclusive with B&N or Walmart ultimately I believe revenues will be lower than if the product is distributed to the largest umber of outlets. Border's also sold that book by 'A-listing' its merchandising with in-store events, front of store displays, discounts, etc. In the process they not only for-go publisher paid merchandising revenues but that type of activity can only be done sparingly otherwise it creates too much noise for consumers. In other words if they extend their publishing program for first run titles to say 10/quarter (which isn't a lot) how will they find the space to merchandise them in the stores? And remember they have a much bigger financial stake in these titles - author advance, printing, can't return them, warehousing, etc. than if they bought them from the publisher.

Ultimately, you will see some major name authors experiment with direct to consumer but it will not represent a big trend.

Lastly, admittedly we haven't seen a huge amount of dynamism from mainstream publishers but I do think you treat them as too static relative to the change going on around them. I do believe publishers will react faster and in (perhaps) revolutionary ways but I can understand your skepticism

Barry in post three:

What about booksellers? Pretty interchangeable, too, I'd argue. The big box stores, if they stand for anything, are only about prices (not a coincidence that Wal-Mart's slogan is "Everyday Low Prices"). Amazon does have a brand, mostly about the customer experience -- the links to related products, the comments, the recommendations, the ease of use, the immediate gratification. Independents don't really have a collective brand (or if they do, it's not terribly relevant to their success). But they do, or at least should have a brand in their community, a reflection of their individuality, you could say, related to expertise, enthusiasm, and personal knowledge of customer tastes, that should continue to offer them certain advantages in a flat distribution world.

(He also speaks about publisher's brand which I will address next week).

To find my retort go to Barry's post.