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Reaching New Audiences
May 10th, 2010
After 5 weeks of iPad use one thing has become crystal clear to me: Magazine, newspaper and book publishers are too focused on applying the same old, tired business rules.
Maintaining your current customer base is critical to any business, but the number of existing customers is generally a fraction of the total potential base. We’re somewhere in the midst of an inflection point in the content business. This is a stage where existing models are challenged, new ones are created, leaders can be toppled and the proverbial "guy in a garage" can completely reinvent things. So why are so many publishers trying to apply all the old rules? Here are a few examples:
Magazines at $4.99 an issue. This one’s just too easy to pick on. Are you kidding me? The product is nothing more than a quick-and-dirty print-to-e conversion. Were these guys not paying attention to the book industry when they saw nobody could sell their quickie p-to-e books at the print price? Curiosity is driving some sales now, but that’s not a long-term strategy. Look at some of the comments about Time’s app:
Only $260/year to get content freely available on the web or delivered to your door in print for a fifth of that. Idiots.
If each issue was a dollar I’m sure more people would buy this mag. $5 is silly.
Time notes that they’re only selling single issues right now and that a subscription model is coming. Fine, but in the mean time how about doing something more creative? If not a dollar an issue how about giving me the last 5 issues for $5. Just because you can sell print copies at a newsstand for $5 each doesn’t mean you should charge the same for single digital issues, especially when there’s little to no value added.
I really want these guys to succeed and I’m more than willing to pay a reasonable amount for an issue or a subscription. They should use this opportunity to come up with models that help them reach new customers, not just squeeze the early adopters because they know they have more disposable income.
P.S. — It seems so obvious but I can’t help think these guys have forgotten that they make a good deal of money on advertising, so if they go with lower prices and expand their audience they’ll increase their reach…without the cost of printing and mailing.
Newspapers are still asleep at the wheel. The New York Times seems afraid to commit. Their Editor’s Choice iPad app is OK but it’s more of a teaser than a viable, long-term product strategy. As I mentioned in this earlier post, these guys are just training me to find workarounds to get the content I want. And although I’d love to pay for a subscription they don’t even offer one.
USA Today is doing a better job but only going half way to a total solution. Their iPad app is nice and it’s even free. I only read USA Today when I’m on the road but I’m starting to read it more thanks to this app. That said, they need a model that pushes the content to me every day, not one that forces me to open the app for updates. Go ahead and charge…it’s OK!
My local newspaper is more typical of the larger problem though. We’ve been paying subscribers for almost 20 years and every month we’re one step closer to canceling. Want to know how they could keep me on board? Offer an iPad app version of the paper for free with my print subscription. And please, make sure it includes every bit of content that’s in the print version.
The focus there is on customer retention, not reaching new ones. To solve that problem, how about forging alliances with other newspapers so that the app provides much broader access? So if I’m heading to Seattle today I can open my app on the flight west to catch up on all the local news. Sure, you can accomplish all this in a browser for free…if you’re willing to grab the pages in advance. But we’re talking about convenience, which often comes at a price. And don’t forget about the additional advertising reach for all those non-subscribers today who could become customers tomorrow.
Lemmings waiting for the next channel to open. Why does it seem like publishers are all sitting around waiting for channel equilibrium to happen on its own? I have two words for everyone: Go direct! Sure, you’ll want your products in iTunes, the iBookstore, etc., but why is everyone so leery of creating a direct relationship with their customers? Yes, some existing accounts will complain, but if you’re not building a direct strategy you’ll lose in the long run. Despite Apple’s "closed" model it’s remarkably easy to add epub books bought elsewhere to your iBooks library. And look at Amazon. Even though they have a Kindle app for the iPad, any purchases you make for it are untouched (and untaxed) by Apple. Why wouldn’t you want to capture 100% of the transaction by building a direct channel, especially since the choices aren’t mutually exclusive? The more storefronts your products are in, including a storefront of your own, the better!
Here’s an example of how we should all be thinking: The Elements, from Touch Press. Why would a tightwad like me spend $14 on a subject I dreaded in high school and has nothing to do with my job or personal interests? Because it encourages discovery. I don’t know the difference between Dysprosium and Holmium but this crazy app makes me want to learn more about both. So while most chemistry publishers would have done quick-and-dirty p-to-e conversions, these guys took the time to make the topic fun and interesting. As a result, they’re reaching far more new customers than a dusty old periodic table ever would have.
So if the periodic table can be completely rethought to encourage discovery and reach a totally new audience, what about the topics you specialize in? How can The Elements inspire you to approach your business differently?
The Uber-Index
April 12th, 2010 The Rich Content post I wrote back on March 29th keeps popping into my head. I think our industry has spent way too much time trying to force-fit video and other types of content in with the written word. Meanwhile, the real solution to rich content has probably been right here under our noses the whole time: the index. Actually, what I’m talking about should be called an "index on steroids" or an uber-index.
For years publishers have generated those backmatter elements we’ve grown to know, love and rely on…the index. Index specialists are charged with finding all the critical terms, synonyms and other entries then compiling them into one of the most important elements of the book. Up to now those indexes have been static and almost exclusively focus on providing pointers within the book the where index appears. In tomorrow’s ebook, the uber-index should grow as more related content is available on websites, blogs, other books, apps, etc.
Liza Daly expressed a similar vision in this excerpt from an iPad-related interview she did with The New York Times about a week after my "Rich Content" blog post:
I see the consummate iPad reading experience to be one that is, on
the surface, traditional: heavily textual, quiet, hand-held. But lurking
beneath the words is the whole Internet, ready to be questioned — “Find
other works that quoted this,” “Where was the Marshalsea prison?”,
“Which of my friends is also reading this?”, “What is that attractive
person across from me reading?”None of that requires a publisher to “enhance” the e-book prior to
publication. A truly modern e-reader is one that is intimately connected
to the Web and allows a user to make queries as a series of asides,
while reading or after immersive reading has ended.
So what this all means is that authors and publishers could continue to build books they way they’ve done for hundreds of years, but a new effort needs to be dedicated to the index itself. Not the print index, of course, but the uber one that works within the e-reader.
Imagine an e-reader/app that lets you read a book in the traditional way but below the surface it offers smart links to all the related content and resources you could hope for. As I mentioned in the 3/29 post, some of this could be automated but then it’s little more than a set of algorithm-based search results. I want something more and I’ll bet you do too.
How about applying the wisdom of the masses to the problem? Just as the Wikipedia provides encyclopedia-length entries on subjects far and wide, what if there were a community-based service that created nothing but the most relevant pointers to all the best content?
You’re an expert in 70’s music and you spend all your waking hours looking for the best sites, videos, interviews, etc., on the subject Why not share your discoveries about Thin Lizzy and Mott The Hoople by adding to and helping curate the uber-index on these topics? The uber-index would then be made available to e-reader apps so that when someone clicks on Glen Frey’s name in Don Felder’s (terrific!) book about The Eagles, Heaven & Hell, they’ll immediately have access to a growing list of outside resources that confirm Felder’s point that Frey was a complete jerk!
All of this functionality would be included, btw, with little to no work required by the publisher. A utility would run the book’s contents against the uber-index and generate all the relevant links. You could do this when you buy the book or periodically as you’re reading it, to make sure it’s always up-to-date.
How about that? An infinitely deep index, the uber-index, that dramatically enhances and extends the reading experience while preserving it at the same time. Isn’t that what we’re all after?
P.S. — Now take it a step further. Are you familiar with the "Sponsored Links" area of the Google search results? These are the links someone has paid to have included in your search results Why not introduce a sponsored link section to this as well, where monetization can occur? So when you pull up the menu for Glen Frey mentioned earlier it also includes a paid link from Amazon where you can buy his latest CD, if you’re so inclined. Click that link and the publisher/author get a cut of the sponsored link payment. If a substantial enough AdSense-like ecosystem builds up around this it creates an additional revenue stream that could be shared by all parties.
In-Book Advertising
April 12th, 2010 Apple’s upcoming iPhone OS update will include an option for in-app advertising. The iAd service is just the next step Apple is taking to beat Google in what will surely be a very lucrative mobile advertising market.
Does this represent an opportunity for book publishers and authors? Absolutely. Hear me out, even if you’re one of those purists who insists on books existing as they always have, without ads…
Let’s start with the fact that you could always sell two versions of your products: one with ads and one without. The version without ads is priced higher than the one with the ads. Test, measure, rinse, repeat. Why wouldn’t you want the opportunity to study real world data from your customers to see whether ads have an impact on product acceptance and sales? The results might just surprise you.
Or, how about all those free samples you have floating around? I’m talking about the excerpts you distribute in the hopes that you’ll convert some number of browsers into buyers. Your conversion rate is something less than 100%, so why not find other ways to monetize that experience?
This is yet another one of the Kindle platform’s shortcomings. Amazon never built a model content owners could leverage to drive some additional revenue. They didn’t offer it with books but I’m even more amazed that they never figured it out for newspapers and magazines, especially since we’re all quite used to seeing ads throughout those products.
In case you haven’t noticed, most customers feel ebook prices should be lower than print prices. That pricing pressure alone should cause every author and publisher to experiment with services like iAd. What have you got to lose?
P.S. — If Apple is smart they’ll build iAd into the iBooks app. You’ll tell them whether or not you want iAd service included every time you provide them with ePub files for your next book. Hopefully they’ll also let publishers try out that two-pronged approach where the book is available both with and without ads, at two different prices.
Amazon’s Next Move
April 5th, 2010Let’s say you’re Jeff Bezos and you’re heading into the office this morning. It’s the first day back to work since the iPad launch. We’re talking about the most significant gadget launch since, well, since the iPhone. Suddenly the feature set of your ereader, the Kindle, looks pretty lame. No color display. No wifi connectivity. Approximately 149,999 fewer apps than what the iPad supports.
What do you do? My advice: Turn the Kindle for iPad app into the most exciting reader app in the industry.
You might have noticed that Amazon has released several "Kindle for…" apps up to now. There’s a Windows one, a Mac one, an iPhone one, etc. They’re all intended to complement the Kindle, not replace it…and that’s the problem with the iPad version.
It only took a couple of hours of iPad use to realize I’ll never touch my Kindle again. Ever. All my Kindle books are now on my iPad. Do I mind that the iPad’s backlit display isn’t as easy on my eyes as the Kindle’s? No. I read off that iPad display for about 10 hours on Saturday and my eyes felt the same as they did the day before.
And while I love the Whispersync technology Amazon uses to keep my place across devices, I really don’t see myself reading books across devices now. I can’t put the iPad down. I used to read a bit in bed on my iPhone but now I’ll just do the same with my iPad. The Kindle for iPad app is brain-dead compared to the iBooks one though. Even the dictionary feature on the Kindle is missing from the app. Then there’s the glaring issue with no sample support. That’s right. I can’t preview Kindle books through the iPad app, so how do they expect me to buy anything from them?! (UPDATE: I stand corrected. You can download Kindle samples to the iPad app.) Amazon has apparently also conceded the newspaper/magazine segments to Apple as there’s no way to read your Kindle subscriptions through the iPad app.
As long as this app is nothing more than a bare-bones reader Amazon is giving me zero incentive to buy ebooks from them. Why would I make my content investment in a dead-end technology when I could probably get the same title through the iBookstore?
So Jeff, resist the temptation to limit the functionality of the Kindle for iPad app. Make it as rich as possible. Make it extensible so that new types of content can be added to it. Reach out to the community and see what features excite them. Experiment and innovate! Don’t let it rot on the vine like the "Experimental" features have on the Kindle.
Kindle sales are already going to take a hit because of the iPad. You’ll continue selling to people who are convinced the Kindle offers a better reading experience than the iPad. It doesn’t though.
You can afford to lose the hardware battle but you really don’t want to lose the content battle. Focus on your reader apps and make them world class, OK?
P.S. — The iPad is great but it’s not without its flaws. Click here to read the details of my first day with this very promising device.
