PunditGuy
One Million
I’m not fully awakening this blog just yet, but I thought it was worth noting that sometime over the past couple of weeks this place welcomed its 1 millionth visitor. My site meter tells me that as of today, 1,001,960 individuals have been here.
That’s cool.
Thanks.
Now go back to sleep.
So Many Choices…
There are thousands of customers who own a copy of the software produced by my company. Each one of them have individual personal tastes when it comes to the books they use. So, even though they typically receive more than 200 titles in the box they buy, rarely are they satisfied with the selection. So what do they do? They call us or email us with book suggestions. Imagine the hundreds of wish lists we receive each week! It can be difficult to manage, but worth it in the end as we watch customers move from being one time only purchasers to committed owners of a growing personalized library.
But how to we pick which books we develop, market and sell? It’s not really all that complex.
First, when it comes to our main software packages, we aim to build a “standard” biblical reference library. Oops, did I say standard? Yes, I know, a standard library is in the eye of the beholder. But we’ve had years of experience with books and we know that to have a well rounded library you have to have the basics covered. That means multiple Bible translations, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, theologies, devotionals, Bible studies, sermon illustrations, etc. You get the idea.
So, back to the question of which books make it in the box and which don’t? It comes down to two things – coverage area and royalty costs. First, we look at the categories covered in the product and we make sure we have enough books to fill each one. We try whenever possible to have the best book in its category, but in some cases we haven’t been able to acquire a license from the book publisher for the “top” book. That’s OK, we’ll take the second or third best book in the bunch. We never stop working to acquire licenses to books so it’s likely that eventually, we’ll gain access to the best book and we’ll put it in the product.
Next thing we look at is royalty costs. If you’re already a customer it’s likely you started with one of the big 200+ book products. If you were to purchase each of those books individually you know you’d spend a whole lot more than you did when you bought the product from us. We’re able to provide a huge discount on books in the 200+ box because of the favorable royalty terms we’ve been able to negotiate. If a book isn’t in a 200+ book box, it’s probably because the royalty doesn’t allow it. Sure, there are other issues as well…but in a nutshell, that’s mostly it.
More on licensing and book choosing later in the week.
The Death of the eBook
From the “how many articles have I read just like this one” file…
Mike Elgan, a technology writer and former editor of Windows Magazine explains why eBooks are bound to fail. There’s really nothing new here. Elgan confesses that there will always be vertical markets for eBooks (like the one my company serves), but they’ll never be the killer of the traditional paperback novel.
Hmmm…never…that’s a long time.
Old Models
Patrick Alexander, editor-in-chief at Penn State University Press…
“I think the most pressing challenge facing Penn State or any university publisher is the changing face of scholarly communications and the rising costs associated with that,” Alexander said. “I think old models for publishing are becoming increasingly not viable, [and] it’s up to the scholarly community to come up with some new models for publishing.”
That’s just one interesting comment in this interesting article about the rising costs faced by university presses. Apparently, their profitability is being dragged down by the requirements that come with the tenure process. Academic institutions require that candidates publish books as a part of being awarded lifetime employment. The university presses are almost always the publisher of works such as these. Problem is, they aren’t the most interesting books in the world, and the presses are taking the hit.
What’s Sony Thinking?
That’s the question asked by Andy Le Peau, editorial director at IVP, following his quick review of the Sony Reader PRS-500.
You can’t search it. You can’t write notes in the margin. You have to have Windows XP. There’s a half-second delay when you press the turn-the-page button. You can’t skip directly to a particular page. There’s no backlight option for those who want to read in the dark.
It costs about $350.
eBook reading devices aren’t new. A half a dozen entered the market in the late 90’s, many of which received great reviews from the early adopter crowd (a.k.a., “techno geeks”). Problem is, the devices never really took off with book publishers (a.k.a., “the content providers”, a.k.a., “the market makers”). And without book publishers (a.k.a. “critical mass”), the devices (no matter how “cool”) are nothing more than expensive doorstops. It looks like Sony may have failed to grasp that concept.
And That’s All There Is
I closed the book fair today with another half dozen appointments. The floor was noticeably quieter being it was the last day of the event. The weather has stayed almost perfect the entire time, so I imagine a lot of folks decided to get out and enjoy it.
I’m on a plane late Thursday heading back to the states. Goodbye London (for another year).
My Feet Hurt
I spent all day at Earl’s Court One Tuesday, with meetings from 9 AM til 5:30 PM.
Whenever I go to shows like this, I’m always amazed by the amount of books published. More than that, I’m blown away by the variety of subject matter. During my ‘in between meetings’ moments, as I was walking down the aisles, I’d think up the most bazaar book subject I could and then wait to see how long it would take before I saw a published version. Invariably, I’d see one or something very close to it. I don’t know what’s more strange – my book ideas or the fact that there are actual markets for these things.
LBF Observations
The first day of the London Book Fair is in the bag. As far as logistics go, I’m much more pleased with the location of this event. Earl’s Court is in the heart of London, and access to food, shopping, sites, etc., is excellent. And if you’re lucky enough to have lodging like I do, you appreciate the simple 3 minute walk to the hall.
The exhibit layout is a little bizarre. Today’s Publishers Lunch email described it well.
The Earl’s Court exhibition center is new and familiar at the same. The space is reminiscent of the old location at Olympia with a reasonably sized “main floor” surrounded by a big mezzanine. The neighborhood is more convenient, the transportation by tube easier, and food and other basic services are more abundant (including a poor crew pushing a trolley of sandwiches and drinks for sale down the aisles). After last year’s poorly received riot of accent colors, organizers have gone the other way and invested in acres of manilla–beige carpeting, beige lockers, and beige bunting galore–large easy-to-find booth numbers and other functional improvements (including wider main aisles with benches to sit on; ancillary seating/meeting areas, and newly constructed closests and lockers in the Rights Center said to have cost the fair more than the price charged for a rights table).
Once people get past the basic navigational confusion of a new center–which happens to be wedge-shaped, with three different levels–business seems to be proceeding smoothly. While opening day was traditionally the quietest on the floor in the past, given a certain reluctance among some locals to work on Sundays, the change to a Monday opening has aisles as brisk as ever. And yes, the weather is much better than in New York.
I’ll say. Yesterday it was 78 degrees in London. Today it cooled to 75. It rained every day of the show last year, so you can’t ask for more with this great spring weather.
I had a light schedule today, which was intentional. Since I arrived in London yesterday afternoon, I figured I’d be pretty wiped out with jet-lag. I was. By 2 PM I just wanted to drop. Tomorrow though I’m booked solid from show open to close.
So, for now, that’s all from here. Cheerio!
Traveling Man
So, I’m heading to London tomorrow for the book fair. I’ve got a direct flight over, which limits my air time to 9 hours. I’ve spent most of the day today getting everything together – calendar, meeting agendas, documentation, itinerary, you know, the regular stuff. I’ll be plenty busy each day of the event.
I was checking on things to do after hours and I found this evening session on book digitization. Might be interesting, and then again it might be nothing more than authors bemoaning the paradigm shift toward electronic publishing. Hit or miss. If I go I’ll comment about it here.
While I’m in the area I’ll try hard not to find myself sitting down at a table here. I’ve revised my dietary intake since the last time I was in London, and this place doesn’t really align with the new me. But then again…
Talk to you from the other side.