Publishers’ Why’s and Wherefore’s When Migrating to Digital (are all the damn apostrophes correct?)

Indeed, when the current publishing upheaval began (it seems just a little while ago in the scheme of things) and the conqueror ‘Digital’ came swaggering into the publishing world, publishers were at first completely devastated; then were bombarded by all kinds of options and questions for their very survival!

You can just imagine publishers’ mental angst deciding “Should I get out of this rapidly changing fireball of an industry or should I admit that the old ways are going down the drain and commit to learning a whole new process … dealing, perhaps, with an entirely new and separate tech industry?”

Karina Mikhil (pictured), a publishing executive with a Master’s in Publishing from New York University, has some excellent questions and analyses that will help these publishing execs and their firms reach a viable decision.

From Karina Mikhil in Publishing Perspectives:

Migrating to Digital Publishing? The Six Key Questions to Ask

Here are the six “Ws” you need to ask yourself before transitioning from the old to the new: why, who, what, when, which, and where.

The publishing industry is not generally known for being agile or quick to change, yet it is facing one of its biggest times of change probably since the invention of the printing press. At the heart of this is the migration to digital.

Prior to this migration, a time-tested process and structure existed for getting books printed: from acquisition, copyediting and typesetting, to author reviews and proofreading, to print. Although hiccups occurred and no two companies had the exact same workflow, the foundations were the same and ensured quality products got released in expected time frames.

Whether publishers are dealing with online content or e-books, digital only or both print and digital, publishers are now faced with more questions than answers as to how to incorporate the new with the old. Below I provide a framework for those questions, using the traditional 6 Ws: why, who, what, when, which, and where.

Why?

Of the six questions, this is the easiest to answer. No publisher can afford to ignore the digital any longer: the tipping point has come and gone; more and more e-books and e-readers are being sold weekly; and authors will begin demanding this, if they haven’t already. And traditional publishers need to offer all things digital to compete with the emerging “digital publishers.”

Who?

Even prior to the migration to digital, publishers would do one of two things to keep costs down: outsource as much as possible, keeping headcount down, or the reverse, which is hire talent to keep all services and costs internal. With digital, publishers have to make this decision anew. Should they invest in new talent from other industries (e.g., technology) or in educating existing talent, those who are eager to learn and have a background in publishing? Or should they turn to one of the many conversion and content solutions providers that exist in the market?

What?

Read and learn more

Writers Welcome Blog is on Kindle right here :)

E-Books and Serialization

Stories told in bits or chunks, rather than in a complete book format all at once, is an old, established, storytelling technique known as 'serials' ... and was best suited for magazine or newspaper formats.

Apparently, e-books are now going to experiment with this type of storytelling structure. In fact, the idea was conceived and brought to the forefront almost simultaneously by two different entities thousands of miles apart!

I think serialization of e-books is a great (actually inevitable) idea ... What do you think?

This from booktrade.info 

How To Come Second In A Publishing Race ... And Still Win

It's good news all round that an independent publisher can gallop hard and fast, lose by a nose to an author: and still make friends and influence people.


It happened to BeWrite Books when renowned best-seller Roz Morris – a world-class thoroughbred – pipped them at the post on the same new idea both, unknowingly and thousands of miles apart, had been working on simultaneously for months. And it was smiles, good humor and fun all round when BeWrite Books sent an email of congratulations to Roz on her win. But the story got better ... and it's about how to win even when you lose.

Although they'd never met before, BB chief editor Neil Marr and Roz made a virtual, long-distance handshake to team up, there and then, to share and broadcast the new system they had developed independently. They co-wrote a special article telling all here at: http://www.bewritebooks.blogspot.com/.

It's all about a new approach to ebook novel structuring that allows a fully prepared novel to be built, satisfyingly to the reader, in four regularly and shortly-paced episodes of equal length, craftily making use of the old and well loved newspaper and magazine system that pre-dates even Dickens and Doyle to build a complete book in bite-sized chunks that all but died out in the latter half of the last centuries as newspapers and magazines cut back on serialized fiction or folded.

But the new scheme is subtly differences to the old grand masters in its fresh approach to serialization and marketing works.

BeWrite Books was busily preparing the first six titles from its existing catalog for simultaneous release in the new form in late September, when Roz, took them by surprise and released her own new book, My Memories of a Future LIFE, last week.

Read and learn more

Writers Welcome Blog available on Kindle :)

More Thoughts on the eBook Format...And Kindle eBook Reader

Eldon Sarte, publisher of Wordpreneur, has some additional (and entertaining) thoughts on eBooks and the POD digital world previously expressed in this blog. I like his take on this subject:

My Thoughts on the eBook Format

Prompted by Michael Werner’s comment on yesterday’s News to Use item on the new Amazon Kindle eBook reader, here are my thoughts on ebooks in general. Make of them what you will.

• eBooks are excellent for “instant” on-demand delivery particularly for highly volatile and specialized content (e.g., technical, business, reference, textbooks, etc.).

• As a universal “paper book” replacement, the way ebooks were originally intended and envisioned way back when, they are failures. Why? Because consumers never asked for them. The paper book form factor is cheap, portable, intuitive (and did I say cheap?). So why would the consumer give a futz?

On the contrary, publishers (who were really the ones benefitting from the tech) were pushing it onto the consumer. Who was having none of it, except for areas where the tech made sense (see above).

Enter the Amazon Kindle, which looks like the one that has the closest potential to date to reach “universal traditional book replacement” status. Perfectly timed for the “Think Green” trend (assuming producing it uses up less resources than producing and distributing traditional books). Rich extensive content. And the wireless bit’s a thing of beauty.

But boy, at $399 I think it’s just too gosh-darned expensive for mass adoption. I think that’ll kill its immediate potential and growth. And too bad too; the world may just be ready for such an appliance… a reasonably priced one, though. Not that I can even come close to claiming I know better than Bezos and Co. on this particular subject, after they’ve obviously invested way more time and energy at it than the, what, 5 minutes I spent thinking about it?

On the other hand, they’re lucky they got 5 minutes after I heard that price tag. Cause and effect, hmm?

One last thing: that “tactile” thing Michael mentions (or “curling up with it in front of a fireplace” for you romantics). I fully agree… except that, to be fair, it’s the only reading experience I really know. I can’t honestly say (and chances are, neither can you) that “curling up in front of a fireplace” with Kindle instead of an actual book would be a better or worse experience.

Not yet, anyway. Books are cheap. The Kindle’s $399. I’m in no rush, thank you very much.