Tag Archives: Tech & Web stuff

Links of Interest (At Least to Me) 01/09/06

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Sometimes there is just so much out there on the web it is hard to narrow down what to link to. Because of that I have decided today to do link clusters, a couple of links around each idea/concept. We will see how it works!

Promoting a book especially early in a career presents challenges in the modern atmosphere. A great post on the value of free from Jurgen Wolff’s blog should be read and his Gurellia Tactics post should not be ignored either. But by far the most impressive post to date is from A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and is a manifesto in a post if ever I saw one. Read it; it is called Do Something and if you do not get inspired to promote your book more effectively then I just don’t know.

I know I bemoaned memes the other day and so this is exceptionally hypocritical BUT the idea just got in on me. Stainless Steel Droppings Blog has launched the Readers Imbibing Peril (R.I.P.) Autumn Challenge and the line up is impressive to say the least. You should follow SOME OF THE LINKS as they are pretty much all great book-blogs!

So there has been some incredible chat recently on Self-Publishing. Read the Blurberati Blog for the skinny on what is going on in the world of innovative self publishing facilitators. Read Wired.com for industry reaction and read Organic Research (2 different posts) for some illuminating consideration. Marginal Revolution is sceptical (like all good economists I say) and finally for something COMPLETELY different.

That is about all I can reasonably fit it for today (And yes I am vaguely conscious that it is only technically the 1st for many readers but even though it is 40 minutes from the first where I am it feels like the 1st)
Eoin

Don’t end up in the long tail of the Long Tail

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The Long Tail Series Part One(August/September 2006)

1) Introduction to The Long Tail for newbies
The Long Tail is basically the idea that beyond the bestseller lists and the top X hundred number of products in a given market there are many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of alternative products that might actually be of more value to different consumers. These products are not necessarily good but amongst them there may be exceptional and wonderful products. In the book Chris Anderson of Wired discusses how this Long Tail is emerging, what forces are driving it and how companies are exploiting it and how it will benefit consumers. It started as an article and he maintains a good blog too.

And you are saying, how obvious is that? Well you are right BUT Anderson brings together some interesting insights into how the Long Tail works, the forces driving it and the reason why it is important in the current times.

2) Important notes for writers
The most interesting aspect of the Long Tail concept for authors is that it relies on tools and techniques for sorting information and building context to work and to drive user/consumers down the tail towards information that is valuable to them. He calls these tools Filters. If you are having trouble getting to grips with what tools are thing of iTunes where you can search by Genres, by Artist or by ranking and even within the genres by ranking and by sub genre.

This is exceptionally important for artists, authors and publishers because in essence these Filters are the new gatekeepers. Anderson underplays the barrier role the filters are now playing. You only benefit from Long Tail Effects if you are within their system i.e. if they can find you, process you, assign you metadata, decide who might like you, see you in other users play lists/reading lists and generally collect information on you.

Anderson keeps saying that it is important to have good tools and systems for accessing information but the sad truth is that if you don’t get within the system then you will not even register with the filters. So for say, a subscription based music model, the company controlling the subscribers can decide if your song merits attention or not. Amazon for instance is open enough to allow you join their associate system and start from there. Who knows perhaps enough reader have bought and reviewed your book to catapult you into good company on their recommendation lists and thus some extra sales.

My point here is this Long Tail Effect will not happen by accident. You need to make them happen. In the same way that publicity and PR don’t just fall from the sky you need to build contacts, encourage newspapers and radio stations. In the Long Tail World you need to build relationships, encourage friends readers and fans to write reviews and include your work on top ten lists and within their notes, general to evangelise your material or it will not even register with the filters, never be suggested to a new fan and remain in the long tail of the long tail!

More to Follow.
Eoin

. . . . But so will Search

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And you say “Doh!”
It may seem obvious that search will drive change because Search seems to be changing everything. Well firstly that is not true, Search is changing quite a lot of things but not everything. After all, as the first part of this series argued, a book is a book etc. Search will not make a novel a non-fiction book nor will it make a non-fiction book a children’s’ picture book. The books themselves will remain essentially the same though their occurrence in different media, be that paper, audio CD, MP3 file, e-book or serialised on a webpage, will surely become more frequent.

What will change is that these books will need to be open to Search and that means that the digitised versions will become valuable marketing tools. Publishers know this. That is probably why they are resisting Google Book Search so strenuously. Marketing will become more and more about how well your book places in terms of native (non-paid for) search results (Sponsored links and contextual ads will be important here too). And that placement will influence sales.

It’s about marketing
I have discussed before, one of the key issues self-publishers face, marketing. Well in the digital, Author driven, Search driven future world of publishing, there will be no difference. Great opportunities to go it alone will offer themselves and authors will think that simply putting a book online will result in huge sales and no problems.

But many books will die on the web, a lonely, unread, unnoticed death.

Why? Because in the same way that real world selling and marketing takes more than just producing a good product, online marketing takes hard work, graft, contacts, networking and a degree of luck.

Having pleased every author yesterday with my post on their ability to drive change I have to now throw them back down to earth. Unless you learn to harness the web you will be faced with two options, obscurity and disappointment or falling into the arms of the revived publishing firms, or the new ones who emerge from the wreckage of the current industry. You may laugh at that but read on.

Amusingly Search may well rescue publishers
Search and books are made to go together. They are friends, publishers just have not admitted it yet or rather they have admitted it they just wish they owned the game when in fact it is quite clear that right now Google, Yahoo and MSN own the search game and everyone else has to just accept a minor role for the time being. That could change with new innovation but for now it’s a solid rule.

Consider the discussion yesterday on the role of publishers. They act as aggregators of authorial content, risking capital on many projects to gain traction with the rare few. Well they have advanced marketing skills and they also have great tools at their disposal, brand names.

The traditional strengths of the publisher are eroding. Editing can be purchased in online auctions for a few hundred dollars, design and typesetting for only a little more, manufacture for next to nothing if you sacrifice some quality and for the not too comfortable a full print run of a tiles is not an unimaginable cost. There will be little profit in offering these services to authors in twenty years time.

Publishers can survive the onslaught of digitisation not by screwing the author, not by owning the whole process but by moving up field and becoming even more intimately involved in the one field of their business that is not rapidly commoditising, marketing. Slicing off their non-productive cores and outsourcing is the way forward. It is harsh but otherwise publishing will not have the capital to invest in new tools to build book profile online, to promote author blogs and seed the web with viral videos promoting their newest title. They need to shrink.

And when they do, armed with new skills and new weapons, they will once again insert themselves on the value chain and place themselves between the pot of gold (Small as it is) and the author. And what is more authors who fall into their hands will, like authors now faced with little option see it as just the way it is.

And that’s the fault of Search?
Well not quite, it’s more that Search will be the catalyst and driver than the actual cause. Technology in general is the cause. Change can be a terrible thing. How is it that Chinese quote is supposed to go: “May you live in interesting times?” it is safe to say that we do!

Packed and ready,
Eoin

Yesterday . . . Authors will drive change . . .
Tuesday . . . A book is a book is a book

The Web Trend – Trend Vs Fad Watch

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Having written many articles since my initial Trend VS Fad post I am happy to say that one idea is firmly entrenched in my mind, that Books and Publishers and the Web are now firmly and symbiotically locked together. The relationship has yet to resolve itself into a fully matured one but there can be no doubt that the book/Web convergence is a trend not a fad.

Before anyone jumps on me and says: “Well of course it is. How stupid do you have to be to doubt that?” I say nothing is inevitable. There are many reasons Publishers might resist the Web and some still do. Readers still feel threatened by the Web and online content and most companies are unsure how to react and interact with the network and their own customers.

Books as we know them will remain, possibly as the expensive niche product that they once were, but I feel sure that over time (and whether we want them or not) new types of Books will emerge that marry the certainties of paper with the potential of the network.

The Web and Online Books offer enormous benefits to everyone but as I discussed yesterday these benefits may not necessarily accrue to Book Publishers. Indeed new and dangerous competitors could emerge. Some we may not even have thought of yet.

It may well be that venerable names will cease to trade as they get their online strategy hopelessly wrong or invest too much in a technology before its time is due or even simply by being unfortunately un-hip.

But I can see no escape for publishers, I can see no other avenue for books and the web will be enormously enriched by the changing of attitudes this trend will enforce. As we grow used to the idea of Wikipedia and the web offering quality content, online books will support and indeed raise the expectation that online information is as good as that found in a book. Instead of being an almost forgotten section of a bibliography the web links consulted will become the primary and books the secondary.

There is no escape. It will happen. All that remains is the excitement of how, when, why, who and of course the winners and losers.

Show me the money . . .

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There is a great article by Richard Siklos in the New York Times about money and the web (or perhaps more accurately the lack of it).

The following gives you a good idea of the tone:

We’re still in the early innings, but given how much the Internet has already transformed the media and society, it’s surprising how little money traditional media companies make directly from it.

Don’t take my word for it. Flip through the financial statements of some of the biggest names to see what they say about their Web sales and profits. You won’t find separately broken-out figures at Disney, Viacom, or Time Warner (aside from AOL).

While towards the end we do see some shards of light:

A while back, I paid a visit to Sumner M. Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, at his home in Beverly Hills. While perusing his collection of saltwater fish — the world’s largest such collection, he says — I ran by him my theory that strikingly little money is being generated online despite all the activity among the media cabal. “I’m expecting we’ll have a $500 million business in three years’ time,” Mr. Redstone said. “That may not be a lot of money to you, but it is to me.”

The overall tone is downbeat in the medium term.

And the same issues were raised by the Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, on a few occasions over the last while. I have linked to the most relevant speech. Companies are forced to move rapidly to the web and to hope the revenues will eventually follow them.

Book publishers are taking a more relaxed approach. They are doing what the Music industry did. Waiting and waiting. Meanwhile rivals who would like slice of the pie are moving in on book publishers’ territory and very soon I fear profit base. Unless publishers start reacting and even better leading the money will not only be in short supply in the medium term from the web but it will be re-directed into the pockets of their rivals long-term.