Posts Tagged publishing
Posted on December 21, 2010 by Miller
I need to start out by saying that I’m a big fan of food and wine. I’m also a big fan of Food & Wine (the magazine). The the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed just about every issue that gets flung on my doorstep and have loved trying my hand some awesome pairings (thought I wish they’d focus a touch more on the wine then they do now).
But with declining circulation, ad revenues, and eyeballs shifting online, publishers seem to have gone bat-shit crazy when it comes to the digitzation of their magazines. I love my iPad and I think that device presents such a unique format that is PERFECT for magazines to move towards as part of their overall digital strategies. I’ve tried GQ, Wired, and Food & Wine on the iPad and to a certain degree they are all missing the mark (especially when it comes to subscriptions and pricing – but another problem for another post).
I just want to highlight a couple pieces of low hanging fruit that could really separate Food & Wine from the rest of the pack (I’m picking on you beccause I love you, ok?).
First and foremost, the layout of the iPad app for Food and Wine is killer. I love the way that they have integrated video and other interactive content into their stories and features (step-by-step video guides with Mario Batali were a welcome addition).
A major opportunity that they are missing (as well as countless other publishers) in their iPad and AND their print edition would be the integration of a simple QR code on every recipe or article that allows me to scan it with my mobile phone to download the recipe, share the content with friends, or just let me save a shopping list of ingredients. I’ve seen it done with cover stories, but magazines should take the golden opportunity to extend their reach and conversations from a print edition to the web via engaged users. If it’s good, we’ll share it.
Food and Wine I think does a decent job with their Facebook community and I actually look forward to their posts with recipes in them. They obviously have a foot in social media – but I think that they could get exponentially more mileage if they just connected the different parts of the magazine into a seamless, sharable experience. The iPad app shouldn’t be a separate beast from the magazine or the Facebook page. Let readers showcase their recipes, rate the ones that were in the magazine and most importantly share everything!
The publishing house that gets this part of the strategy right (along with the pricing – god knows that’s important) should have no problem succeeding in this media environment. It’s not goign to be about having the flashiest app – because it’s not about an app – it’s about integration of great content across mediums and community. Period.
Posted on June 15, 2010 by Miller
Have you ever seen Shit My Dad Says on Twitter? Check it out. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Really funny stuff. Justin Hepburn, who set up the account as a place to share his father’s snippets of wisdom, currently has 1.4million followers, a TV deal, and a new book which is a collection of stories and essays (also called Sh*t My Dad Says).
I’ve checked out the preview on Amazon for the book and decided that it was something that would make for a quick and fun summer read.
I also picked up an iPad a few weeks ago and have been very impressed by how many things I use it for (full review coming next week). What I haven’t really spent a lot of time with is buying / reading full length books on it from the iBooks store. At the risk of not enjoying the experience, I figured Sh*t My Dad Says would be a good starter book.
However, the iBooks store currently doesn’t stock it. Not that big of a deal, right? I’ve heard that you can just grab a Kindle app and purchase / read any Kindle books on your iPad.
But here’s what I found when I went to Amazon to purchase the Kindle version:
Notice anything strange?
Here’s a quick observation on the difference between bytes and binding…
If you look hard, you’ll see that the new hardcover edition is priced at $8.79 and the Kindle edition (digital download) is $9.99. A brand new, hardcover book should NEVER cost more than an e-edition. Ever. Call me cheap, but the cost associated with moving a couple megabytes of text is infinitely smaller than the cost of printing and shipping a hardcover book. Never mind the antiquated royalty system between publishers and authors, I’m not going to touch that here. The whole purpose of e-readers is to (hopefully) do for reading what iTunes did for music (granted, there are some bad byproducts to this system as well) by making it convenient, instant, scalable, and cost effective.
But as the model stands right now, I think e-books in their current form and pricing structure are majorly flawed, no matter how cool the reading device is. Amazon is asking me to pay more for what is essentially the same experience as a paper book (without being able to share it with someone else when I’m done – another rant altogether).
Publishers need to either charge less because consumers recognize that there is substantially less cost involved with distribution and substantially more restrictions when it comes to sharing an e-book vs. a paper book – OR make the e-book a completely different experience than the paper book- one that is worth a premium price. How? I can think of a few ways:
- Ability to share chapters or the whole book with friends after completing it.
- The ability to annotate pages, add hyperlinks and share notes with everyone else who has bought that ebook.
- Enable book club style features where every reader can interact with other readers in real time through the book, commenting and suggesting other books.
- Allow for authors to have Q and As IN the book or allow users to peel back pages to see earlier drafts.
Things like this would differentiate the ebook experience, provide a kick ass way of interacting with other readers and essentially make each book come with its own built-in online community (not to mention sell a lot more Kindles, Nooks and iPads so more people could take part in that experience). Need more? Seth Godin has another awesome idea for a paperback Kindle.
Am I asking for too much here? Do you think the problem is that the tech is in its infancy at the moment, or do you blame the publishers (or authors)? Do you have an e-reader device and has it made you read more – if so, how would you weigh in on the pricing, buying experience? Fire away in the comments, please.
Posted on July 21, 2009 by Miller
In Utica, NY we have one daily paper that’s actually printed – The Observer Dispatch. When I was checking it this morning I noticed that they have launched an ‘online e-edition.’ I’m a curious creature – so I checked it out.
This is a paid premium service ($10 / mo. or $1 extra per year if you’re a paper subscriber).
My first impression was that it was basically a clickable PDF scan of the paper next to the text version of the article that you would normally see on the web. I was able to turn pages, zoom, etc. But it left me scratching my head…how is this a premium product compared to the regular website?
Granted, it is kind of cool the first time you see it once you get the hang of navigating. And the PDF downloads on the sample looked great. Don’t get me wrong, I applaud them for trying something different, but I get a sense that they’re trying to provide an alternative to the tangibility of paper – and give people who read a newspaper the same layout they’re used to. I just think there are some missed opportunities. No stories had hyperlinks in them or commenting capability, just a link to the ‘full story’ with a graphic of the paper to the left of the text.
What about moving to the next level of a newspaper website, providing content as well features that make it highly sharable, mobile, and interacitve… Charge for that.
What kinds of features? First, allow people to comment on everything, from pictures, to each news story. Show the most popular articles on the front pages as determined by the users – above the fold. Feature local bloggers or most popular comments. Take submissions from the community- a la Huffington Post. Use services like Facebook Connect or the TWitter API to let users tie their social profiles to comments and take the discussion across platforms.
Check out Gina’s piece on media transitions over at Save the Media (don’t stop with that one, she’s got a lot of great posts). She argues that through these transitions Something will be gained and something will be lost. Get over it. But trust your readers and users to help find ways to deliver the content they want at a fair price.
Take It Mobile
I should also mention that the New York Times is crushing the mobile gig. I’m super impressed by their iPhone app – everything from the layout, to search really makes reading the news on a mobile device feel natural (now if only I could tweet links instead of e-mailing them). But the point is that they’re building something that’s got a slick design, good content, and mobile. Once they get the user connectivity down, it would be a service that I would glady pay a monthly fee for.
The same can be said of the way they are utilizing the Kindle to deliver content and make it a revenue stream (though I haven’t used it – it looks damn good).
I can only speak for myself when I say that I would gladly pay for quality content that is on-demand, easy to navigate, mobile, and can be consumed on a device of my choosing. If newspapers think that what will save them is giving people the digital version of thumbing through a paper, then they’re in bigger trouble than we thought. This isn’t a discussion about whether or not content should always be free. I’m just saying that all eyes are on the newspaper industry to try something bold. Starting with making a kick ass premium (but affordable) service for users, or finding a better way to create value for advertisers is a start.
What do you think? Am I way off base on this? What’s your opinion of the e-edition?
I need to start out by saying that I’m a big fan of food and wine. I’m also a big fan of Food & Wine (the magazine). The the past couple of years I’ve enjoyed just about every issue that gets flung on my doorstep and have loved trying my hand some awesome pairings (thought I wish they’d focus a touch more on the wine then they do now).
