Can PubSoft Be Helpful in Pulling Traditional Publishing Into the Digital Age?

So much has changed in the publishing industry almost at mach speed --- And yet, so much has remained the same, especially in traditional publishing (TP).

TP wants its old business model (print) to remain as much the same as possible, especially now since the majority of revenue (though declining) still comes from that model. That being said, TP also realizes, more and more, that the tipping point is fast approaching when most revenues will result from digital products; as such, they are fervently searching for economical and efficient ways to adapt and transition to digital.

Enter PubSoft - 'Pubsoft is publishing software for the next generation of great publishers. The strength of the system is in the intuitive and easy-to-use administrative portals that allow publishers and authors control over their marketing and platform building activities. Publishers can manage author accounts, upload ebooks, sell direct to customers and distribute royalties. The system can be used to automate daily administrative tasks, provide a direct to consumer sales opportunity that builds a strong, engaged reader following, and provide a two-way marketing and sales environment for authors.'

This purported publishing solution software appears to have a lot to offer to both major houses with several imprints, down to a handful-of-titles independent publisher.

More details at Good-E-Reader by Mercy Pilkington:

PubSoft’s New Platform Stands to Revolutionize the Publishing Industry

While so much about publishing has changed in just the last few years, one of the unfortunate truths about publishing is that so much has not changed. The traditional publishing model, as most authors, readers, and booksellers know it, has not changed much in the last few hundred years, in fact. With the advent of digital publishing, self-publishing, and ebook-0nly and digital-first publishing, traditional models are looking for ways to keep up with the changes coming at them.

PubSoft, a new platform aimed at helping publishers brand themselves and reach out to a category of consumer called “influencer readers,” released some news today about what it has to offer to a wide variety of publishers, from major houses with several imprints, down to a handful-of-titles independent publisher.

“Pubsoft’s unique digital publishing engine is a game-changer in the publishing sector. With Pubsoft, publishers can quickly and easily create and manage a custom ebook store to enable direct-to-consumer ebook sales, including branded mobile publishing for iPad devices. The Pubsoft platform gives publishers the power to engage and manage authors with SEO-optimized author and book landing pages, social media marketing integration, distribution capabilities across multiple channels and online content sampling and multiple point of purchase options.

“The platform streamlines backend workflow tasks, automating online marketing functions and administrative work and allowing publishers to capture and analyze author, reader and revenue data. Pubsoft delivers a dashboard that gives publishers the power to capture metadata and drill down into book, author and reader levels for insights that can supercharge marketing campaigns, inform key business decisions and drive broader product strategy.”

Good e-Reader spoke with Kbuuk and PubSoft’s Dougal Cameron about what this platform has to offer everyone involved in the life of a book.

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Publishers Need To Determine User Personas on Mobiles For Better Book Marketing/Sales

Mobile devices hold audiences for
your book sales

In today's expanding digital publishing world with ever increasing mobile devices --- publishers need to figure out just where in the hell their most probable customers reside among the mobile community.

Of all the mobile users (fastest growing digital doers) where (or on which device) are most of the readers of my particular genre?

Why is this important? Because each category of mobile device are separate entities with their own design and utility needs that need to be customized for each.

Just how do we decipher this useful bit of information?

It's often damn hard, I'll tell you that --- But, one way (and maybe the only way for publishers/writers outside the digital device manufacturing industry) is through research done by digital device manufacturers to determine best business practices within their own industry.

Tonight's post is research done by Flurry, a mobile ad firm, that analyzed the usage data from more than 44,000 devices - grouped under the two major categories of iPhone (Smartphone) and iPad (Tablet).

Great results depicted on a pretty 'persona usage' chart:

Looking at the persona or demographic groups depicted in the chart above, on which device would you say the audience for your book genre is mostly located?

Get more info from the original FOLIO magazine article :

iPad and iPhone Uses Differ Sharply

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Lit Crawls, The Thirsty Scholar Pub and a Cocktail of Books and Booze

A Lit Crawl hosted by Washington Square Review
at the Thirsty Scholar pub in the East Village last year.

Live and exciting events for sure --- with a purposeful and fun ambiance! 

Let the publishing industry fret about the future of print. An ever increasing digitized age has grown weary, moved on and created a more intensified and three-dimensional 'literature as live event' concept AND this concept appears to be real, down-to-earth and thriving.

The fast growing tentacles of Lit Crawls - think Pub Crawls, but with the added ingredient of writers, authors and publishers; both established and newbies - have spread from San Francisco (where they began in 2004) across the United States and overseas.

A goal of mine today is to acquire a list of the upcoming 2014 Lit Crawls, book passage and attend them ALL next year; beginning with Manhattan and the East Village and Lower East Side of New York - where I'll get my basic training for the rest of the lit crawls across the U.S. and overseas.

I figure by the time I get overseas, I'll be in good enough shape (booze-wise and cleaning-the-pipes-wise) to really open her up and have a couple of new film noir detective novels written (written from the belly of the beast Lit Crawl pubs), ready to go right to the silver screen. 

Yeah, now that I have the time, I think this will be a worthy goal, indeed --- What do you guys think?  

Now, this from Laura Collins-Hughes in The New York Times:

A Heady Cocktail of Books and Booze

A 2012 Lit Crawl map

LET the publishing industry fret about the future of print. In an ever more digitized age, literature as live event appears to be thriving.

A case in point: the sprawling web of Lit Crawls — like pub crawls, but with authors — that have made their way from San Francisco, where they began in 2004, into literary strongholds across the United States and now as far as London, whose inaugural Lit Crawl was last weekend. Next month, Los Angeles will have its first.

But this weekend the action is closer to home, with the sixth annual Lit Crawl Manhattan. For three hours on Saturday evening, the bookishly inclined will take to the streets of the East Village and the Lower East Side, seeking their literary fix in bars, art galleries and the occasional pizzeria or laundromat.

According to Suzanne Russo, director of Lit Crawl NYC, it is not a series of sit-downs featuring glossy, boldface names, but a gritty, low-budget affair, both more accessible — there are no tickets, and admission is free — and more locally oriented, giving lesser-known New York writers a turn in the spotlight. For that reason, Ms. Russo said, it draws people who aren’t part of “the nerdy literary crowd” — though it draws them, too.

Bronwen Hruska has participated in past crawls, both as a novelist and as the publisher ofSoho Press. She sees a marked contrast between what she called the party feel of Lit Crawl, filled with writers interested in having fun, and events studded with literary stars, which, for the audience, can feel “almost like worshiping at the foot of your idol.” Lit Crawl, she said, is “much more approachable as a literary festival.”

“I hired a baby sitter,” Ms. Hruska said. “I’m going this weekend.”

The lineup — more than two dozen events spread out over three phases, beginning at 6 p.m. — includes interactive games, like a round of “naughty trivia” with Ophira Eisenberg, the host of NPR’s “Ask Me Another”; ghost stories with Lapham’s Quarterly at theMerchant’s House Museum, which may or may not have ghosts of its own; a performance by Farrar, Straus & Giroux’s house band, the Savage Detectives; and straight-ahead author events, like the New Voices Reading Series “Radical Latinas” program.

Jack Boulware, executive director of Litquake, the San Francisco literary festival that spawned the crawls, said they offer readers and aspiring writers a level of access to authors that auditorium-style events tend not to allow.

“You can buy them a drink,” he said. “You can go to the after-party and hit the dance floor with them if you want. You can talk to them in a social setting. They’re not just whisked offstage. It’s much more democratized in many ways.”

Lit Crawl is also about as low-tech as a brick-and-mortar bookshop. Depending on the space in which an event takes place, Ms. Russo said, even a microphone or a projector might be too much to expect.

The timing of this year’s crawl, and a Friday night benefit at Le Poisson Rouge, is not ideal, Ms. Russo said: Yom Kippur begins Friday at sundown and lasts until just after 7 p.m. on Saturday. This week, the novelist Lore Segal bowed out of her scheduled event, citing Yom Kippur commitments, but is now back on, Ms. Russo said. But, she noted, only one event curator asked, because of the High Holy Day, to be scheduled in a later slot.

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'Enhanced Hardcovers' Or 'Devalued E-Books'?

We've all heard of 'bundling' in consumer-offered products. You supposedly get a better deal (price) if you bundle things together --- say like combining auto and home insurance on the same policy or combining telephone, cable and internet together in one 'bundle'.

Does it work? Sometimes, but you really have to keep track of your own services' costs to see if the bundling saves you enough money to be worthwhile.

Next month (October 2013) Amazon will be offering e-book plus print book bundled packages called Kindle MatchBook.

One publishing industry executive previously envisioned such a product as being beneficial but his price points (more expensive) were way different than those being offered by Amazon (cheaper) next month. He called his version 'Enhanced Hardcovers' and felt the bundling would entice consumers and add to the profit of both authors and publishers.

Others, on the other hand, feel the cheaper price points in Kindle MatchBook will further devalue e-books and make them seem like simply add-on items. 

Tonight's feature article and discussion will explain a little about Amazon's Kindle Matchbook and Enhanced Hardcovers and you can decide for yourselves if you believe the new packaged product will be worthwhile or not. 

By Rachel Deahl in Publisher's Weekly:

Are Publishers a Match for Kindle MatchBook?

When Amazon announced on Tuesday that it was launching a program to bundle print and e-books, called Kindle MatchBook, the effort drew little response from publishers, and even less participation. Among the major houses, HarperCollins is currently the only one participating, and it is doing so in a limited fashion. With publishers largely unwilling to talk about the program—most houses PW contacted declined to comment on MatchBook—the question remains whether publishers are not yet willing to try bundling, or whether they simply don’t want to try it with Amazon.

Through MatchBook, Amazon customers can buy e-book editions of new print titles, as well as e-book editions of print titles they have already purchased, at price points ranging from $2.99 to free. The program is set to go live in October and, currently, offers a mix of self-published titles (18,000 by Kindle Direct Publishing authors), as well as titles released by Amazon Publishing. A spokesperson for HarperCollins said that the house has "a selection of our backlist books" available through MatchBook. Amazon remains confident that more publishers will join the program in the future.

Bundling has been a simmering topic in the publishing industry. Some executives, like Evan Schnittman, formerly at Bloomsbury and now at Hachette, have publicly said that the approach could be beneficial. What Schnittman conceived, though, was not a program along the lines of MatchBook. In a previous story, Schnittman told PW about what he calls the “enhanced hardcover,” a bundle with print and e-book editions of a title offered at a price point 25% higher than the standard hardcover price point. The enhanced hardcover, he felt, would entice consumers, while also working towards the profits of both authors and publishers.

MatchBook is nothing like Schnittman's enhanced hardcover concept and, for some, the price points it offers are underwhelming. One publisher, talking off the record, said he was nonplussed about MatchBook. He felt the low prices in the program "further devalues e-books," and makes them "look like a throw-in item."

All the major publishers declined to say what they think of MatchBook, or whether they will join the program. Agent Robert Gottlieb is even skeptical about whether publishers have the right to submit their books into the program.

Gottlieb, chairman of Trident Media Group, said MatchBook exemplifies “a further erosion of the value of authors’ work.” More importantly, for Gottlieb, is the question of whether a program like MatchBook is covered under existing contracts authors have with publishers. “I don’t believe there are provisions in contracts for this type of arrangement,” Gottlieb said, noting that clauses around digital rights ownership in standard contracts do not cover a transaction like the one proposed by MatchBook.

Continued at original article

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