Bill Nienhuis

You mean, you can actually know what your customers are thinking?

Bill Nienhuis — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:04:21 +0000

While this falls into the “duh” category for most businesses, it is actually a revelation to book publishers. Their customers have traditionally been middle men – distributors, brick and mortar stores, wholesalers, etc. For the most part, their real customer (the reader) has been elusive. At least, elusive within the means of the publishing house. Pre-Internet, it was acceptable for a publisher not to have a direct relationship with the reader. But now, there’s no excuse to not know your customer – their wants, needs, desires. One only needs to look to social networking for the answer. You just might need to thicken up your skin though. Customers will tell you the truth, not to your face of course, but to others, in public, on the internet. You’ll want to monitor specific places to eavesdrop into their conversations. Don’t worry, you’re not invading anyone’s privacy. Your customers will gladly allow you to drop in on the conversation.

Stephen Palmer at Beyond the Cover gives some hints on what to do if you’re a publisher in need of customer information.

Moving Publishing from Print to Digital

Bill Nienhuis — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 19:23:39 +0000

Brett Sandusky, Director of Product Innovation for Kaplan Publishing, shares his experience of moving his publishing house from print to digital.

What’s a Typewriter?

Bill Nienhuis — Thu, 27 May 2010 17:14:31 +0000

The Abrams booth at Book Expo America ’10.

I’ll give them an “A” for creativity, but really, what the heck is that thing? Wikipedia calls it a Typewriter. I mean, I know what a laptop looks like, and I still have a PC keyboard laying around someplace, but what is that big black thing with the paper sticking out of the top? What do you do with it?

What message does this send? A visual like this says one thing – we’re out of touch. Again, I can’t fault them for trying to stand out, but stand out they do, with a big piece of hardware that most people haven’t seen or used in decades. It’s fitting.

Should Text Book Publishers Fear Kindle DX?

Bill Nienhuis — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:11:31 +0000

Well, according to the rumors, yes.

Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday plans to unveil a new version of its Kindle e-book reader with a larger screen and other features designed to appeal to periodical and academic textbook publishers, according to people familiar with the matter.

Beginning this fall, some students at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will be given large-screen Kindles with textbooks for chemistry, computer science and a freshman seminar already installed, said Lev Gonick, the school’s chief information officer. The university plans to compare the experiences of students who get the Kindles and those who use traditional textbooks, he said.
More

Amazon has worked out a deal with several textbook publishers to make their materials available for the device, Mr. Gonick added. The new device will also feature a more fully functional Web browser, he said. The Kindle’s current model, which debuted in February, includes a Web browser that is classified as “experimental.” (WSJ)

Are the text book publishers that are working with Amazon thinking clearly?

Amazon has already put the fear of God into trade book publishers with their heavily discounted NYT Best Seller titles for the Kindle. Who’s to say that Amazon won’t also do something similar with text books?

I can see it now. Hello student! You know that text book your professor says you have to buy? Yeah, the one in the book store that costs $150? Well, look no further. Get your Kindle edition for $39.95.

What student wouldn’t immediately jump on a deal like that? Sure, the discount isn’t likely to be that deep (is it?), but the fact that the book will be discounted is enough for the student to happily slap down dad’s credit card.

Text book publishers need a digital strategy, to be sure. Most STM publishers have been digital for years now, so models exist. If text book publishers are hoping Amazon makes their digital market, they’ll won’t be happy at the end of the day. They’ll watch their print sales drop along with the revenue they depend upon. Amazon can be a great channel partner, but no one should give them control of that channel.

MORE: Engadget has a video and details of the new Kindle DX hardware.

Lexcycle Acquired by Amazon

Bill Nienhuis — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:46:28 +0000

Lexcycle, the company who created the Stanza book reading software for the iPhone, has been acquired by Amazon.com.

Stanza allows users to browse a library of around 100,000 books and periodicals for the iPhone, many of them in the ePub format — a widely accepted standard for e-books that Amazon has yet to support with its proprietary Kindle platform.

In its blog post, Lexcycle said, “We are not planning any changes in the Stanza application or user experience as a result of the acquisition. Customers will still be able to browse, buy, and read ebooks from our many content partners.”

It is not clear how much Amazon is paying for the year-old company with offices in Austin and Portland. But the move indicates Amazon wants to consolidate its position on mobile devices, particularly within Apple’s ecosystem, which may include a tablet computer later this year. The Lexcycle team should also help Amazon stake out ground on Google’s Android phones, the Palm Pre and Windows Mobile devices — and perhaps eventually turn to more open e-reading formats.

“It’s very early days for e-books, and we believe there is a lot of innovation ahead of us,” said Cinthia Portugal, a spokeswoman for Amazon.com. “Lexcycle is a smart, innovative company. and we look forward to working with them to innovate on behalf of readers.” (NYT)

eBook sales last year were about 1.5% of all sales, so there’s lots of room to grow. Amazon has a huge stake in the business with its Kindle eBook reader and sales of Kindle compatible eBooks. The question now is, will Stanza continue as a product or will Amazon throw it away and steer Stanza users towards its iPhone Kindle app? Amazon needs customer names, they don’t need a second iPhone app.

Congrats to the guys at Lexcycle. Just last week I listened to Neelan Choksi at the London Book Fair. No wonder he had a perma-smile on his face!

London Book Fair Observations

Bill Nienhuis — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:07:42 +0000

Day number one of the London Book Fair is complete. Even though the business climate is difficult for most publishers, the show floor was busy and one could almost sense a bit of optimism amongst the exhibitors. Attendee traffic was brisk for most of the day and I didn’t notice many empty stall spaces. The aisles seem a bit wider than in years past, and that is usually an indication of fewer exhibiting publishers. All in all though, it was hardly noticeable.

Like last year, everyone is talking about digital this and digital that. This year a “Digital Zone” is set up in hall 2. The zone is actually a pad of 8 stands melded together to make an island of small kiosk’s and a theater for product and service demonstrations. I sat in on a couple of the demos, and for the most part they were informative. One must remember though that this is a publishing show, and as such, those who demonstrate need to know their audience. The term “.epub” was thrown around with abandon, and it could have easily been misunderstood by the majority. The XML standard is being heavily pushed by most everyone, so much so that the term is freely used both as a noun and as a verb.

Of the things publishers are struggling with, monetization is tops. While everyone agrees that digital is no longer a futuristic dream, it is a reality of the day, the debate over pricing and channel ownership has just begun. There is still so much for a publisher to learn. Most acknowledged that the key to addressing digital today is the length at which a publishing house is willing to take risks. Experimentation is key, yet in these difficult economic times, it isn’t easy for anyone to play with capital.

The complex discussions are being tempered by the extraordinarily nice spring weather here in the UK. If things get too stuffy inside, one only needs to walk a few hundred feet to bask in the warm 70 degree sunshine.

Greetings from Gloucester Road

Bill Nienhuis — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:27:05 +0000

I’m in London for the book fair, which officially starts on Monday. I’m looking forward to attending a digital seminar tomorrow. It will give me something additional to do on Sunday, which is traditionally my “get acclimated to the time zone” day. This year I brought along my Dell Mini 9 instead of the full fledged Thinkpad. So far, I’m mostly concerned with getting on the the net, and that’s what these things are best at. If I have to remote in to my work machine, that’s when the rubber will meet the road. We’ll see how well the Mini does. If things get interesting at the seminar tomorrow, I’ll blog about it here. I’ll be twittering as well, so if you want, you can follow me.

MORE: Well, I would have blogged about the seminar I attended today, and I probably would have twitter’d a bit too IF THERE WAS WIFI! That’s right, there was no internet in the room. A conference about digital books, digital publishing models and all sort of other digital talk, but with no internet available to the attendees. In fact, Neelan Choksi, COO of Lexcycle (the folks who make Stanza) commented that this was the first conference he spoke at where he wouldn’t be able to get on Twitter and see what the crowd said about his presentation. In 2009, not having an internet connection during a conference like this is unheard of. A major mis-step by the organizers. Other than that, the room was packed with jetlagged people who probably would have rather been outside in the London sunshine than inside a poorly lit room on a Sunday afternoon. While some of the speakers made good points, all in all, it was not a very memorable event.

The “Rights” Problem

Bill Nienhuis — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:16:34 +0000

Mike Shatzkin writes about a serious issue facing big publishers. That issue concerns publication rights owned by publishers, and what they know or don’t know about those rights. This is something I’ve also thought about and it really is a big deal. Most publishers have a terrible system for storing rights information about a book they’ve published. That terrible system is typically paper based and searchability is extremely difficult. The ramifcations of this organizational nightmare will soon come to a head once Google builds the Book Rights Registry, something they’re compelled to do as part of their settlement with the AAP and the Author’s guild. Publishers will find that they need to invest lots of time and money into the process of pulling data from paper and inputing it into the Google database. My bet is they won’t do it, and as a result, thousands of books will remain orphaned. That’s a shame.

On Royalties and Advances

Bill Nienhuis — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:51:58 +0000

Since I’m in the business of paying royalties, not collecting them, I’ll refrain from a lot of comment on the whole royalty advance issue and whether there’s any rhyme or reason to it all. The discussion is interesting though, and a few folks are collecting their thoughts on the matter. Bookends, LLC attempt to answer the age-old question, “what’s the story with earning out royalties?”. The Sunday NYT book review section recently published an essay “About that book advance…“, which brought this thorough author perspective response from Mike Shatzkin. Finally, Evan Schnittman of OUP comments from the publisher side of the tracks.

Next Week – London

Bill Nienhuis — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:06:43 +0000

I’m heading to London on Friday for my annual trek to the London Book Fair. Besides the normal business meeting schedule, I’ve got plans to attend the following seminars:

Strategies for digital publishing in a time of uncertainty (4/19 – Cromwell Room)
Getting the best out of your digital deal: Commercial and legal issues (4/20 – Thames Room)
Introducing the dedicated digital reading device to the UK consumer (4/20 – Cromwell Room)
“Where’s the Money” Digital Keynote (4/21 – Cromwell Room)

I’m also looking forward to watching demos from LibreDigital and Code Mantra.

LBF is a more managable event than, say, the monster Frankfurt Book Fair. Rather than being spread across 8 buildings, LBF fits comfortably inside Earl’s Court. This years fair runs from 4/20 through 4/22.