What Matters Now: get the free ebook

Most interesting idea from Seth Godin. It is a free e-book, with several prominent Nashvillians that have contributed a great message and are quite succuessful in social media space.

Basically, it's a free e-book titled What Matters Now. It's a good read from smart folks.

United Breaks Guitars - A Lesson in Social Media

You may have heard about this, but in case you have not it’s a great lesson in how quickly social media can spread when something goes wrong. This e-mail text from my father-in-law says it best:

A musician, Dave Carroll, recently had difficulty with United Airlines. United apparently damaged his treasured Taylor guitar ($3500) during a flight. Dave spent over 9 months trying to get United to pay for damages caused by baggage handlers to his custom Taylor guitar. During his final exchange with the United Customer Relations Manager, he stated that he was left with no choice other than to create a music video for YouTube exposing their lack of cooperation. The Manager responded: "Good luck with that one, pal."

So he posted a retaliatory video on YouTube. The video has since received over 6.2 million hits. United Airlines contacted the musician and attempted settlement in exchange for pulling the video. Naturally his response was: "Good luck with that one, pal".

Taylor Guitars sent the musician two new custom guitars in appreciation for the product recognition from the video that has lead to a sharp increase in orders.

Here’s the first video:




It went so well he then did a second video:




Make sure you watch it to the end. United Airlines has got to be saying OUCH!! The second one has had JUST shy of 600,000 hits.

You are now able to purchase these slams on United Airlines from his site:

http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/

Talking about turning lemons into lemonade.

Evolving Business Models for Content Producers

This is the sixth and likely final post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

The connected world is driving new business models. Here’s a few we publishers need to consider:

Free/Freemium
The consumer tests a chapter or two of our product. If they like it, they buy the whole thing. Amazon has pioneered this through its Look-Inside-The-Book feature.

Ala Carte Micro Transactions
This involves taking our content, breaking it into smaller bits and selling to the consumer just what they want. Apple pioneered this with iTunes; just buy the song you want for $0.99 instead of the whole album at $13.99 for a bunch songs you are never going to listen to anyway.

Many have argued against this as unhealthy for the music industry, but it will continue to be successful because it is a better solution for the consumer. Yes, it is convenient for the very small percentage of the US population that’s employed by the music industry, but many more benefit from this new model and thus it can’t be stopped.

We need to pioneer this in publishing. It is especially relevant to our reference and self-help books. Could we piece meal fiction with cliff hangers so the consumer can’t wait to buy the next scene?

Subscription
This business model has been talked about so much, and has been around for so long, I think some don’t give it enough credit as a viable model in the connected world. Subscriptions are most likely for the “Tribe” that is really passionate about your content and just wants to keep the facet flowing.

The beauty of the model is that it’s an annuity. It is the opposite of the Ala Carte Micro Transactions model where you only pay for exactly what you want. This is for the person who can’t get enough of our content and this is a better deal. We will take that annuity all day, but we have to keep offering enough new interesting content that they want to keep paying us that subscription.

I can see this working for nearly all of our clearly defined specific genres, including Bible, Reference, Self-Help and Fiction.

These models will take on more relevance as our online communities grow. What do you think?

3 Billion People – From Listeners to Readers to Writers

This is the fifth post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

The printing press turned listeners to readers. Will the Internet turn readers to writers and/or participants? (Creative Strategies Technology Seminar - October 23, 2009)

As I posted earlier, we will have 3 billion consumers connected through smart phones, computers and web-enabled TV in 2010. This creates an unprecedented opportunity in history for people to quickly and inexpensively communicate. If you doubt this will happen, consider the numbers of bloggers today:

• Over 100,000,000 blogs
• 85% of 18-35 year-olds are active posters, commentators and uploaders

The critics will cite the Despair.com wall poster:

BLOGGING: Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.

This blog may indeed fit that description. But still, never before has it been so easy for so many to say what’s on their mind and quickly send it around the world. We can’t ignore the power of the people, because they will be heard more than ever before; no way around it. It’s now a two-way relationship; not just publishers pushing out content.

The opportunity is to harness that powerful network. My next blog will discuss how we as content producers can harness that network.

3 Billion Connected Consumers

This is the forth post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

What does it mean to content producers like Thomas Nelson to have 3 billion connected consumers? The consumers will want access to information and entertainment anytime and anywhere they happen to be in the format they prefer. That format could be an e-book, audio book, author video, etc.

Folks will still read traditional print books. As I have posted previously, however, there will be three dominate screens all connected to the web where people spend their time more and more:

• TV
• Cell/Smart Phone
• Computer

What are we doing at Thomas Nelson to make sure we are producing content for 3 billion connected consumers? Is it better for the author to write a book, do an audio version, to make a video or create all three? More and more, these are important conversations to have internally, with our authors and with our customers.

What does the consumer of that author’s content want? It is easier today than ever through social networking to build that direct relationship with the content consumer and make sure our message is relevant.

Think how quickly those 3 billion connected consumers can spread the word if you have a great message and that message is provided in a format they want to share? This gets really exciting.
In my next blog, I will discuss how all of these 3 billion connected readers may turn in to writers and active participants in the content.

Analog to Digital Revolution – The Next 25 Years

This is the third post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

Creative Strategies’ observation concerning the analog to digital revolution:

• The first 25 years was bringing digital to businesses
• The next 25 years is bringing digital to the masses

If you think about the last 25 years, so much of the digital revolution was spent making businesses more productive – e-mail, spreadsheets, ERP systems, etc. The vast majority of the technology spend was in business.

Sure, there have been advances in personal cell phones and gadgets like the iPod and iPhone. These devices, however, are just the tip of the iceberg for what’s to come. Several things are acting as a catalyst to speed up the digital consumer world:

1. The power of semiconductors continue to increase dramatically, as the devices themselves get smaller. The equivalent 600 Mhz processor in a 1999 computer is now in an iPhone.
2. These same semiconductors are in relative terms less expensive for each unit of power and functionality.
3. Net Books, small laptops, are selling for less than $400 opening up computing and the Internet to millions that previously could not afford access. 28 million Net Books will be sold this year; 37 million in 2010.
4. Technology advantages we have learned at work will naturally continue to dovetail into our personal lives.
5. The Internet is prevalent worldwide through cell phone providers, 80% of the world’s population has cell coverage.
6. Today 3.3 billion people have cell phones and it’s growing.
7. Smart phones are exploding globally; all connected to the Internet.
8. Growth in business technology spend has slowed, and it’s refocusing on the consumer.

As indicated in an earlier post, there will be 3 billion Internet-connected consumers on planet Earth next year. Think about that - 3 billion people connected. The implications for content producers like us will be huge. My next blog will discuss how this changes consumer behavior.

Scary Book Facts - We Must Reinvent

This is the second post in a continuing series from a technology seminar by Creative Strategies at Thomas Nelson on October 23, 2009.

Consider these facts presented by Creative Strategies:

• 80% of US households did not buy or read a book last year


• 70% of US households did not enter a bookstore last year


• 42% of college graduates never read a book after college


• 33% of high school graduates never read a book again


• 52% of books are not read to completion
  

The last point I get. I probably finish a book about 70% of the time, because I usually get it about halfway through. In fact, I am more likely to read a full book with Seth Godin’s formatting in Tribes than I am to read a whole traditional chapter format book.

For us book publishers, those facts if indeed true, are downright scary. The solution, as regular readers of my blog know, is for book publishers to become content producers to provide product in any format a consumer wants to consume our education, message and entertainment.

This is why our DigiReady efforts at Thomas Nelson are so important. Our company is embracing DigiReady. DigiReady is one of many things we will need to do differently in the coming years to stay relevant. I am certain we will make the transition, despite the unavoidable pain that will come with it.

We have great content. We must reinvent it; not just repurpose content.

Nelson Leadership Seminar - Post 1

This blog will start a series of posts highlighting key take-a-ways from Thomas Nelson's Leadership Technology Seminar Series. We had the first seminar last Friday. The presenters were Tim Bajarin and Ben Bajarin, the principals at Creative Strategies.

Let's start with these two intersting facts presented at the technology seminar:

1. Processing power is continuing to increase at an amazing pace, while the processors driving that power continue to get smaller
2. The Internet is allowing anyone to connect on anything to any digital content any where in the world

These two converging facts are making our cell phones into what is called smart phones, or basically functional computers that fit easily in our pockets and purses. The iPhone is the most popular smart phone today.


Consider these facts:

• In the United States, 80% of the population has PCs; 77% have mobile phone
• Globally, only 13% of the world's population has computers, but 42% have cell phones
• About 23% of all cell phone purchases today are smart phones

It is estimated by 2012, 50-60% of the world will have smart phones. This raises a series of threats and opportunities to our business. Imagine if half the world's 6.8 billion population can now have access to our content with a device the size of a cell phone. How does that change our publishing strategy from how we acquire rights to print runs on books we sell in a traditional print format?

This is likley a threat to our print volume in the future, but huge opportunity for digital delivery of our content. Read what Michael Shatzkin has to say of the future of e-books in his post Sunday. It will definitely make you think. It might even scare you.

Stay tuned. There is a whole lot of interetsing stuff to come from our first Leadership Technology Seminar.

So Many Emails Are Nice But Not Necessary

For the first time in months, I just got through all my e-mails. This has been a focused attack this week. I dread starting the effort, but I am glad it's over. There were a few gems in the e-mails, but for the most part it was a quick hit of the delete button.

Several business units report directly into me. They are diverse from our international publishing operations to domestic children's publishing to our digital efforts. I often deal with the issues that really need my attention, which might be 5% of the e-mails I get.

The vast majority of e-mails I can't even get to on a prompt basis of a few days. I guess if I did not want to be involved in my family's life I could, but it turns out that so many of the emails were just "nice-to-be-copied-on".

I have not been commenting on e-mails that ask the multitudes for an answer, even when it's a business unit that reports to me. My thought being that enough others will chime in intelligently. Unless I have something AMAZINGLY important to say, I stay silent. The only problem is that I still get copied on just about every one's response.

I don't have the solution. Our CEO, Mike Hyatt, has had some interesting blogs on the subject, including declaring e-mail bankruptcy.

Well five more e-mails just came in on a Saturday afternoon as I wrote this short blog. They will just have to wait a few weeks. I am going to play baseball with my boy.

Basic Social Networking Terminology

I spent the last three days at the annual summit of the Society of International Business Fellows (SIBF). SIBF is an organization of about 500 international business executives and owners that share international and domestic business ideas and assist each other around the globe. SIBF has been quite helpful in our efforts to build our business internationally and find suppliers abroad.

A focus of this year's summit was social networking. While these are brilliant business people, especially internationally, Thomas Nelson is ahead of the SIBF members for the most part when it comes to social media and networking. (That unintentionally landed me on SIBF's Social Networking Committee.)

The social media terminology below was shared with the SIBF members this weekend. Even though I believe most of us know these social networking terms, I thought I would share them with you.

Blog - a journal on the Web. Weblogs can be used to improve communication and culture in an organization while enhancing marketing, branding and public relations efforts. Weblogs cover as many different topics, and express as many opinions, as there are people writing them. Some blogs are highly influential and have enormous readership, while others are mainly intended for a close circle of family and friends. A blog entry usually consists of a title, headline, body, post date, comments, tags, and more.

LinkedIn - the world’s largest professional network with over 40 million members and growing rapidly. LinkedIn connects you to your trusted contacts (i.e. SIBF Group) and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities with a broader network of professionals.

RSS (Rich Site Summary) - a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it. Users save time by not needing to visit each site individually.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - the active practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external aspects in order to increase the traffic the site receives from search engines. Firms that practice SEO can vary; some have a highly specialized focus, while others take a more broad and general approach.

ShareThis - a program found on a blog which simplifies and accelerates the online world by making sharing content as instantaneous and customizable as possible.

Technorati - an Internet search engine for searching blogs. Technorati looks at tags that authors have placed on their websites. These tags help categorize search results, with recent results coming first.

Twitter - Social networking and microblogging service utilizing instant messaging, SMS or a web interface. Twitter enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Twitter is used by organizations and individuals to quickly and effectively communicate news and information.

Wiki - a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wikis have become an effective and popular means for organizations to collaboratively increase communication efforts amongst its associates and members.

Facebook - a global social networking website that is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc.[1] Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region. The website's name stems from the colloquial name of books given at the start of the academic year by university administrations with the intention of helping students get to know each other better. (From wikipedia)

What other basic social networking terminology should be added to the list above?

DigiReady Update

Two weeks ago we completed the first two DigiReady training seminars. We trained 16 freelancers and 11 additional internal editors for a total of 15 trained internal editors. We surveyed them, and the results are overall positive. The general findings are:

1. Being 100% DigiReady is critical to our future
2. We are far ahead of our competition
3. DigiReady will increase our sales
4. DigiReady will streamline our processes
5. DigiReady will improve our quality
6. Need to train other freelancers working with editors
7. DigiReady is going to put additional pressure on editor's limited time

The final point #7 is not a surprise. It does put additional time pressure on our editors. Through the numerous DigiReady pilots, however, we have learned that DigiReady gets noticeably easy after about three titles. Like most things in life, there is a learning curve. And, the DigiReady team is looking for ways to always improve the process.

#6 we will be addressing with an additional training seminar in November for freelancers. We are finding most freelancers see the DigiReady training as a way for them to be more valuable to Thomas Nelson and other publishers, which they are!

Nelson editors...don't forget about the follow up internal training on November 10. Not only is it a chance for us to get together and discuss issues, but you can win prizes!! We will have $50 gift cards for the winners of certain categories and a grand prize of a new Kindle 2 for the editor that we feel best utilizes the DigiReady process. The categories are:

• Most MSS
• Most Accurate MSS
• Most Complex MSS
• Best Success Story
• Worst Nightmare Story
  

Again, a big thanks to our hardworking editors and freelancers for making Nelson a publishing leader.

Mobile Device-Agnostic Marketing

Like thousands of others, we are racing down the iPhone app freeway trying to figure out if Iphone apps make sense for us. We have several pilots underway. And the iPhone is just one device; there is the issue of the other PDAs. Will we eventually make apps for all of the other PDAs too?

I like my iPhone. I have been bothered, however, about making apps for a device that has a relatively small market share compared to all the other PDAs that have Internet access; never mind the total cell phone population. Jennifer Deshler, Senior Director of Marketing for our fiction books, may have come up with an interesting solution.

On September 1st Thomas Nelson will launch Green by Ted Dekker. Jennifer will be launching a mobile site that will work on all Internet-capable devices, such as the iPhone, Blackberry, iPod Touch, tablets, computers, etc. Fiction will be driving traffic to the site through radio/advertising efforts. The week of September 7th, our Fiction division will be offering a full free download of Black (all epub formats or a pdf) to anyone who enters the mobile site and provides their email address.
Jennifer appears to have done a lot of things right:

1. Clearly defined customer need – Dekker Tribe wants to be first in the know
2. Why the customer would visit our site – Learn about Green; get a free copy of Black
3. How to drive site traffic – radio and other advertising

In addition, Jennifer has put in place a series of metrics to monitor the results of this effort, including Google Analytics.

We should know if the next month or so just how well this works. My hats off to Jennifer and the Fiction business unit for their creativity.

The Apple Snobs

By most measures, Apple makes some great products. Their customers are amazing fans. The Apple tribe tells everyone about the greatness of their products. As an owner of an iPhone, I get it. Apple has made “WOW” products, and is reaping the benefits from truly great innovation.

Like most energized tribes, however, there is a sub-tribe of irritating snobs; almost elitist. These folks get on a band wagon, which they of course did not start, and they tell everyone how great their new product is, but then they just can’t help themselves….They have to criticize and/or belittle those who don’t have their Apple product.

This is short sighted on several levels, and I don’t need to spell out why. In fact, if you don’t get why that is short sighted, you can pretty much count yourself in the elitist Apple-snob sub-tribe.

There are valid reasons for not having an Apple product. Sometimes it is budgeted related; especially in these hard times. What someone has works pretty well and gets 99% of the job done just fine. Other times it’s preference. I know some business people that have found an iPhone is not the best solution for them.

Apple makes some great products; no question. Are you as classy as the products?

Google Publishing Lawsuits Miss Key Point

It is interesting to watch the opposition authors and their agents are having to the Google settlement. There are lawsuits and threats of lawsuits despite this being a much vetted agreement by several leading industry groups representing nearly all interests.

Most don’t understand it, as they have not read the agreement’s hundreds of pages and then they still may not understand it. Frankly, many of us publishers in the industry don’t get it 100% either. We are all a bit ignorant and perhaps even a little scared at least with one aspect of Google, as I indicated in an earlier post.

Regardless of the ignorance, there seems to be one major point that all of these folks talking lawsuits seem to forget….books are becoming less relevant and content on the Internet is becoming more relevant every single day.

You would have to be wacko crazy to not want your books present on Google today. Tim O'Reilly said, “The enemy of authors isn't piracy, it's obscurity.” Google is one of the best ways for authors and their important messages to avoid obscurity and have an impact.

Oh…and authors will sell far more books with a presence on Google, which is what this is really all about any way…$$$$$.

The bottom line is that less people want their content in books. The model is changing and the old guard hates it; this is NOT what they signed up for. Most of them will not be the content creators, representatives, producers and distributors of the future.

What say you?

Digital Leadership

On July 23rd I posted a blog titled R U DigiReady? The blog discussed what DigiReady means, and why we are implementing the DigiReady process at Thomas Nelson. As the post indicates, this is why we are training our folks on DigiReady:

1. Increase Sales
2. Reduce Cycle Time
3. Improve Productivity
4. Better Marketing
   

DigiReady will allow us to simultaneously launch product in multiple formats, print and digital. If you have any questions about the explosive growth of e-books, check out Michael Shatzkin's latest blog. In some cases over 35% of Amazon sales of a book are the e-book format. Apple, among others, is about to enter the market with their own device. We can't be DigiReady fast enough.

Next week we begin training our freelancers and editors on how to create DigiReady products at Thomas Nelson. We are training 16 outside freelancers and 14 internal editors. (That’s in addition to the four internal editors already trained.) Please support them as they learn this new process. Like any change, it takes some time to become the new standard operating procedure. There will be bumps along the way, and we will work through them.

We have completed 14 DigiReady pilots to date. This is what our editors are saying about DigiReady:

“This DigiReady process is the best thing we could do to protect the life of a book. We want these words to reach as many people as possible; this is a simple, easy way to make sure that happens.” Jennifer McNeil, Editor, Nonfiction Trade Group

"Just ask yourself, what will publishing look like in one hundred years from now? For Thomas Nelson to thrive then and now, digitally-ready content is the ceterpiece of good business, good stewardship, and good strategy." Bryan Norman, Senior Editor, Non-fiction Trade Group

“One of the biggest benefits of making our documents DigiReady is that it enables the elements of the manuscripts to be thought out more thoroughly before they go to Book and Graphic. This structure should really enhance our communication with Debbie and her team on the front end of our process and cut down on style issues with our proofs.” MacKenzie Howard, Editor, Children's Books and Education

“Electronic publishing is an important part of the Bible reference market today, and it will only become larger in the future. Creating really useful electronic versions of our backlist books and Bibles—files with active links for Bible references for instance—currently requires a lot of work for each electronic platform we want to use. The DigiReady process will minimize the duplicated work and produce files that work on a variety of devices with little additional editorial effort.” Michael Stephens, Ph.D. Acquisitions Editor - Bible, Reference, and Curriculum

Thanks in advance to all the Thomas Nelson editors and freelancers that will be learning DigiReady. Your efforts will place Thomas Nelson on the leading edge of publishing today.

Great Hosts We Will Be

Thomas Nelson is starting a learning experience which will result in a paradigm shift. We had Jon Dale in this week beginning his year-long engagement with our publishing groups. While we learned a lot from Jon, there was one resounding message Jon communicated:

We have to shift from not just being great content providers but great hosts too.

What does that mean? It means we still have to publish great content, but that’s not enough. To thrive in the future, we have to host online communities where our content’s raving fans can congregate to share their passion for our products, and our competitors’ products too.

It’s a brave new world.

R U DigiReady?

“Just ask yourself, what will publishing look like one hundred years from now? For Thomas Nelson to thrive then and now, digitally-ready content is the centerpiece of good business, good stewardship, and good strategy.” Bryan Norman, Senior Editor Nonfiction Trade Group

Thomas Nelson is about to start a very important initiative called DigiReady. DigiReady is a new process we will be implementing in editorial and Book and Graphic Design that allows for all titles to be published simultaneously in print and any electronic format.

Here’s why DigiReady is important:

Increased Sales – Today 17% of our Amazon sales are in e-book format, when we have both versions available on Amazon simultaneously. This percentage has been increasing monthly. Currently a new title is not generally ready for digital-release on the Kindle for weeks costing the company valuable sales. Today a new title has to go through a completely separate conversion process. DigiReady will allow us to make more digital sales more quickly starting the day a title is launched in its print format.

Reduced Cycle Time – The DigiReady process will cut between 2–12 weeks off of the time-to-market for a book. The quicker we can get a book to market, the sooner we can start selling it, and the faster we can recover our investment.

Improved Productivity – The DigiReady process will allow us to reduce a title’s digital conversion costs. It will also allow us to create derivative and bundled products much less expensively.

Better Marketing – DigiReady allows our marketing people to quickly send snippets or chapters of books to partners that can promote our book, such as online communities, web sites, and retailers. This will be very important for getting our books noticed quickly on Google and Amazon.

Our editorial staff will be going though initial DigiReady training on August 20 with a follow up session in early October. Basically, our editorial folks will be learning to apply styles to their MS Word manuscripts prior to sending them to BGD, allowing these many benefits to the company.

The company has done 14 DigiReady pilots so far. Like any new process there is a learning curve; the more you do it the better you get at it. For an average trade book, it takes an additional 3–4 hours over the life of the project for the editorial staff to make a book DigiReady; longer for more complicated books and shorter for simpler books.

The training will be conducted by Debbie Eicholtz and these brave editorial folks who did the pilots:

• Jennifer McNeil
• MacKenzie Howard
• Bryan Norman
• Michael Stephens

They will also be our subject matter experts. I want to thank these folks for leading necessary change at Thomas Nelson so that we can quickly capture the digital opportunities available today for our content. The team has plans for making this training fun.

Like any new process or technology, there will be problems. The important thing is to make those problems learning opportunities, and share them with others so we can all be DigiReady as soon as possible. We have set up a page on Sharepoint where folks can share their learnings.

Thanks in advance to our editorial and BGD folks who will be at the center of making Thomas Nelson DigiReady. I would ask that the rest of the company support our editorial staffs as they learn DigiReady.

Finally, none of this would be possible without the deep research and solutions from Bob Edington and the Internet team. I appreciate their hard work and service.

You will see and hear much more about DigiReady in the next 30 days. Please send me your questions. We can all learn together.

Google Book Search – The Good, The Bad, The Relevant

Perhaps you have heard of Google Book Search. Here’s what’s good about it, what might be bad about it, and how we as publishers still remain relevant.

What is Google Book Search? It is an online repository of all books that Goggle can get their hands on – from scanning library copies to digital or analog titles provided by publishers. In fact, Thomas Nelson is providing Google all the titles we can and we have started to be able to track sales to books we have in the program.

Here’s why Google Book Search is good:

Book Awareness – Every time someone is looking for information on a subject, Google’s powerful search engine looks at everything including books in the online repository. A book, instead of an online site, may be exactly what the searcher was looking for leading to a purchase. In other words, Google’s search engine acts like a big marketing machine, but we do not pay Google any marketing dollars in this scenario.

APIs – API stands for Application Programming Interface. Google’s API allows any site to implement a “Google Preview” button. It allows anyone any where to view our books right on their web site. Social networks, blogs, publishers and retailers can have the Google preview, which expands our marketing efforts.

Reporting – Google Book Search provides detailed data that can tell marketers a whole lot about who is interested in our books. For example, we will be able to see exactly what cities in the US are engaging in searches that lead consumers to our content. We can see the words consumers are using to find our content. This and other information Google Book Search provides us will help us to target our advertising dollars, such as relevant online communities for ads, etc.

There is, however, another side to Google that has some publishers worried. Some feel that Google is becoming their biggest content competitor, even though no more than 20% of the content can be viewed for free. Consumers can find the content they want quickly and never have to buy the product. – This is especially true for a generation satisfied with a few snippets of key information; perhaps not wanting to read an entire book.

How do we publishers maintain relevancy? We have to acquire, produce, organize and present content in a way that maximizes the consumer experience; better than Google can. Think about it…Google presents a listing of the various content around a set of key words. It is not organized for maximum effectiveness.

How do we publishers maximize the content’s effectiveness?

1. Choice: Give the consumer a choice. Make sure we are producing content in the format the consumer wants; book, e-book, video, audio, online, etc.
2. Media Rich Products: Produce media rich products that combine the various formats for the most impactful consumer experience.
3. Web-ready: Make sure all new titles are tagged in XML and ready for multiple format distribution.
4. Know Thy Customer: To do the above, you must really know your customer. The online communities we are starting to build will allow us to do that. (I will blog on that soon.)

Understanding the consumer, acquiring relevant content, and presenting it in its most compelling format is what we do as publishers. If we keep up with the technology, devices and online opportunities we will continue to be relevant. Our future is bright.

Wanted: Content Producers

Bob Edington and I spent several days this week in San Jose, California (aka The Silicon Valley) and Seattle, Washington. We met with some very smart people that have access to the people and companies driving the newest technologies and how those devices will impact content. The implications to Thomas Nelson will be substantial over time.

While there were many insights learned, two really stood out: Three Screens and Media Rich Content.

Three Screens
Many device and software makers are focused on the same thing - maximizing a media rich content experience on the three screens that are/will be wired to the web 24/7:

1. Computer
2. Smart Phone
3. Television

Content in the future must be portable and presentable on any device 24/7; in whatever format the consumer wants it. There will be a major proliferation of these devices in the next 18 months and we can expect to see prices drop tremendously. Compared to the new devices in development, the Kindle will seem like those large cream-colored cell phones of the 80s.

Media Rich Content
What does media rich content mean? - Content presentation formats seamlessly integrated appropriately for the three screens. These are some of the content presentation formats:

1. Text
2. Video
3. Audio
4. Web links (Blogs, communities, author sites)

Text will seem so boring; already is to our kids. Combining these content formats in different ways for different devices will allow the customer to consume the product the best way for them.

100% web enabled devices are going to have a huge impact on what we do. Content is quickly portable among the three screens. Oh, and wait till you see what Google can do with all of this in my next blog.

How many of our authors and publishers are thinking about making media rich products? We could continue to publish just text, but text-only will limit the audience and the message’s impact; especially with consumers under 30 years-old. I am not saying books will go away, but more and more there are more interesting ways to present the content.

As one very smart person said, book publishers need to start thinking more like content producers and less like book editors. What do you think?

Future of Book Publishing

I attended BEA a couple weeks ago basically to engage in research for our online and digital strategies. It was the most interesting BEA I have attended, and I have been going to them off an on for 20 years. The anticipation around the imminent changes in our business creates a unique atmosphere.

One of the more interesting speakers was Michael Shatzkin. I have found Michael’s blog, The Shatzkin Files insightful and interesting. In a recent blog, Michael posted his BEA speech:

“Stay Ahead of the Shift: How Content-Centric Publishers Can Flourish in a Community-Centric Web World”

I spend most of day listening to so called “experts” on where our industry is going. If you want to be a leader in publishing in the future, Michael’s views are at least worth considering. It takes 30 minutes to listen to the link, but it is definitely worth it. Michael makes special mention of Thomas Nelson as a publisher that may be on the right path in at least one area.

Book Widgets – Increase Book Sales by 9%

From an earlier blog, you might remember that the #2 source of consumer book awareness is online media. Traditional media such as print, radio and TV are basically dead accounting for less than 5% of book awareness today.

One of the best ways to build title awareness online is to use a book widget. In fact, Amazon.com reports that titles utilizing book widgets on average sells 9% more books.

So, what is a book widget? Book widgets are an online tool that enables Amazon-like search-inside-the book capability any where on the web. You can place a widget link on any site, and readers can get an easy preview of the book. And, the widget can have other functionality such as a buy button.

Check out this widget for The Noticer. It is in the upper right hand corner of my blog. If I can do it, anyone can do it!!

Did you know that our Ingram CoreSource relationship includes the automatic creation of a book widget on every title placed in their system? Yep, a book widget that is already paid for that can be placed as many places online as you want.

Advantages to the Ingram book widget, such as The Noticer widget:

For authors or retailers

1. Lets anyone put sample pages of the book on any web page.
2. 9% average growth in sales for books with preview capability compared to those without it.
3. Encourages the viral spread of the titles.
4. Customizable buy button (if using Ingram’s widget).

For fans/readers/media

1. Put a sample of a Thomas Nelson book on any of your blog posts or social network profiles.
2. Share the preview with friends or colleagues.
3. Search inside a book to look for specific topics.
4. Change the buy link to go to your favorite store or remove it all together (if using Ingram’s widget).

Go to www.thomasnelson.com/consumer/widget.asp and search by the title or ISBN for the product you want.

Ingram is not the only widget available and sales improve no matter which widget is used. We have hundreds of books on Ingram’s widget, but Issuu’s widget is easier to customize, but requires someone manually uploading a PDF of the book.

To see all that we have with Ingram, go to http://thomasnelson.insidethecover.com/ and search by “Thomas Nelson”.

For more information on widgets, contact Dax Edwards at dedwards@thomasnelson.com.

Why XML Is Important

This blog is probably most interesting to the editorial folks at Thomas Nelson, because it will affect their jobs more than others’ jobs. Marketing will be the next most affected; XML will be an important tool to help them market our books. Finally, sales will love it, because XML will drive greater volume across multiple formats.

But you ask, “What is XML?” It’s Extensible Markup Language, of course. And then you ask a bit more irritated, “What is Extensible Markup Language and why do I care?” Here is why you care: XML allows us to create content once, and then nearly simultaneously turn that content into many different formats. We are more consumer-friendly. By launching all those formats, we sell more of our content more quickly.

Yep, we will be able to “tag” the content once, and then make a printed book, e-book, Iphone app, Ijournals and other formats that might be interesting to our changing consumer much more quickly. While there are many advantages to XML, here are three big advantages:

Multi-formats - Ability to produce multiple formats quickly, as indicated above.

Marketing – As online marketing continues to drive book awareness, XML allows for fast retrieval and delivery of relevant content to promote the book in a variety on online communities and marketing tools.

Productivity – Productivity gains come in several ways. For traditional books, Debbie Eicholtz finds that she cuts her department’s processing time on a typical trade book. It is too early to tell how much productivity can be gained, but it could be as much as 40-50% in some functions. Most companies consider an annual 4% productivity gain a good year, so even if the savings is a fraction of the 40-50% throughout the process it’s a good thing. That, however, is just the start. With XML, it is also much less expensive to create other formats.

So, how does XML provide all of these benefits? XML identifies all the content components in a manuscript. XML is “format agnostic”. That means it identifies the content’s components, and then can feed those components to the various tools that create other formats much more easily. Or, maybe we want to publish a custom or new book on Christian parenting. If our books are in XML, we could quickly create a new product based on searching the exsiting titles in Thomas Nelson's catalog for related content. There will be much we can do with XML. If you want to learn even more click on this blog for additional information.

Note that we have to “tag” the content to gain the advantages of XML. And, this is where there is some extra work for our editorial folks. Editors have to spend more time initially to prepare a title’s content. This is accomplished by simply working in the editor’s currently preferred native format of Microsoft Word. The editors apply more structure to the document. The additional structure allows the publishing process to easily separate the content from its presentation. This separation is important for simultaneously accommodating the different displays, for example, for various e-book formats.

We have had several successful pilots preparing our content in format-agnostic XML. Bryan Norman, Michael Stephens, Jennifer McNeil and McKenzie Howard have all participated in pilots for the company. It is additional work for them, but we are beginning to see the benefits. Many thanks to these pioneers for leading this important initiative.

The day is coming when we will be 100% XML on new titles. In addition, we have a company in India converting many of our backlist titles to XML as well. Why do this? Because more and more our consumers want our content in other formats besides the 600 year-old book. The consumer is always right.

Two Publishing Companies

“You have to run two publishing companies today; what publishing was and what publishing will be.”

That came from Dominique Raccah, CEO of Sourcebooks. I think she was quoting someone else; wish I knew so I could given them due credit. Others also discussed how their publishing companies are changing:

Marcus Leaver - President, Sterling Publishers
Josh Marwell - President of Sales, Harper Collins
Dave Thompson - VP of Sales Analysis, Random House

A key take-a-way from the publishers and Mike Shatzkin: Publishing’s future is about owning very distinct narrow verticals, which can be described as very specific BISACs. If you do craft books, for example, you may be able to own the crochet vertical but someone else may own the beaded jewelry vertical.

To “own” the vertical you must own the community; the place where the crochet community can meet to share ideas, interact with the crochet leaders and acquire the leaders’ content in what ever format the consumer wants it: e-book, iapps, online, audio, software, podcast and books.

The successful “authors” will be those that can relate to the community, regardless of format. In many cases, it will be the authors that know how and have the desire to utilize social networking.

If you stop and think about that for a moment, the implications of “going vertical” are huge relative to today’s business model. I think, however, Thomas Nelson is already starting to adapt in some ways to this emerging business model.

To make it most relevant to my Nelson colleagues, consider how the presenters outlined how this might change your “traditional” publishing jobs.

Editorial

1. Product development cycles are going from 12-18 months to 2-6 months. In today’s world, it’s much easier to become irrelevant quickly; can’t wait 12 months for a book.


2. Acquisition editors need to look for authors that not only have great content, but an affinity for building a community with their audience; especially online.


3. Editors are not making books; but building content in format neutral XML. Sourcebooks has gone 100% XML.


4. More data analysis on what to publish; balancing it with the art of publishing.


5. Publishing fewer books; about 25% seems to be the reduction this year.


6. Editors are more engaged in the social networking aspect of the content, blurring the lines between marketing and editorial.

Marketing & Sales
I suspect marketing and sales becomes much more vertical specific. Nelson has already started to do that by grouping publishing, marketing and sales around groups of BISACs.

Marketing and sales are adjusting resource allocation. The change in focus can be seen in where these publishers say they are and are not spending their money.

Generally, this is where they are not spending money or spending much less:

1. Catalogs – Going to web-based e-catalogs with much more functionality and flexibility. This makes sense when the product development cycle is now just a few months. Print catalogs have been error-filled for decades, and it will only be worse with a shorter product development cycle time. It is interesting what HarperCollins is doing with e-catalogs to help buyers.
   
2. Trade shows – You just don’t need them with today’s consolidated, shrinking market and communication possibilities. Only foreign rights may need them, and most publishers are even questioning that.


3. Sales Conferences – Most going to Web Ex. Just too costly to fly everyone in from the far reaches. If publishers are flying reps in, they are only doing it once per year.


4. Author tours – Biggest waste of money. We all knew it, and now the community is online any way. Author tours are being replaced with webinars that can be measured to a direct sales impact. Webinars work, especially when the vertical community knows about them.


5. Traditional print, radio and TV media – These are dead. Random House’s survey confirmed other organizations’ surveys that these are ineffective medias for creating book awareness.


6. Print galleys

So, where is money being spent?

1. Holistic TITLE/CONTENT SPECIFIC vertical marketing plans that focus on social networks, community building and store placement. Sterling increased per title marketing spend by 66% in the past two years by doing away with so much stuff that no longer matters.
2. Digital and online medias
3. Increasing travel budgets in two ways: (a) Editors spending more time out with consumers, again blurring the marketing line. Editors have been too insular for two long and their historical format is becoming less relevant. (b) Sales people visiting accounts more often.
4. Strategically providing more free content
5. Partnering with related vertical sites and online communities
6. Lot’s of young people tweeting on key brands
7. e-galleys

Will all of this change happen over night? Nope. As Dominique Raccah said, we will be running two different companies at the same time. My hunch is that owning narrow verticals will change how publishers are structured; some employees will adapt and others will have a much harder time. Perhaps more on that in a future blog.

What do you think?

Codex/Wildfire Author Web Site Research

In 2001, the Codex Group surveyed nearly 21,000 book shoppers. The objective was to understand author web site effectiveness among book buyers. Attached is the ECPA handout made available by Wildfire Marketing.

Some of the findings:

1. Visiting the author’s web site is the #1 way book readers get to know their favorite authors.


2. Fans will almost always visit the author’s web site, before a publisher’s site with a web page on the book.


3. Book shoppers who visited an author’s web site bought 38% more books from a wide range of retailers than those shoppers that did not visit an author’s web site.

These are the three essential elements for an effective author web site, according to Wildfire Marketing:

1. Offer Free Value – A solid sample of how the books can improve the reader’s life.


2. Create a Reader Community – Utilize tools such as blogs, forums and e-newsletters.


3. Capture Contact Information – Allows authors to stay in touch with their readers and proactively build relationships.

In addition, there are specific factors that must be considered for fiction and non-fiction book web sites. Download the ECPA handout for specifics.

Bowker Pub Track 2008 Book Research

Bowker’s Pub Track presented interesting facts from their 2008 Demographics & Book Buying Behaviors survey at ECPA’s Executive Leadership Summit. Here are some quick facts.

Who reads books?

• Only 45% of Americans over 13 years-old read books
• 32% of book readers are over 55 years-old
• The average book reader is 44

Which and how much media do Americans consume each week?

• 15 hours on-line
• 13 hours watching TV
• 6 hours listening to music
• 5 hours reading books
• 5 hours reading newspapers and magazines
• 4 hours watching DVDs

Note to self: Americans spend 3x more time each week on-line being informed, educated and entertained than reading books. Need to devise a digital strategy for our content quick! Drop the idea of buying ABC from Disney; consumers spend more time on-line than watching TV.

How do consumers initially learn about a book?

• 37% In-store displays and placement
• 12% Friend or family recommendation
• 6% Online book review
• 6% Direct Mail or Catalog
• 6% Online ads

Observation: Online ads and online book reviews now create as much awareness as viral marketing from friends and family. An on-line marketing strategy is critical. Also, according to Bowker, the impact of all print, TV and radio combined accounted for less than 5% of consumers' book awareness. - Tough news for established, traditional media.

Just a few other interesting Bowker facts:

1. Consumers are going to online book reviews two times more often than print reviews.


2. 19% of all books purchased the consumer became aware or viewed the product online before purchasing.


3. 60% of all Christians under 30 have a Facebook account.


4. The largest adopters of the Kindle are over 55 years-old.


5. Bowker’s data has now drawn a correlation that audio and e-books are cannibalizing sales of hardcover books.

Think this stuff is interesting? Wait till you read what Wildfire Marketing has figured out when authors have dynamic web sites. Talk about an impact on book sales! Stay tuned. That’s the next blog.

Dear fellow Thomas Nelson employees,

I need your help. First, however, I have a confession.

I’ve been a digital arm chair quarterback with a flurry of ideas about what we need to do digitally as a company. It’s nice being an arm chair quarterback. You only have 10% of the information, but in your mind make the right call nearly every time. There are no stats to prove you wrong.

Then, I was yanked out of my very comfortable Lazy Boy and placed on the field. I have 300 pound tackles and jumpy linebackers starring me down and no remote control to change the channel. I need your help!!

Thomas Nelson recently provided me with a new responsibility for our company’s digital strategy. Along with Bob Edington, his digital team, Mike Hyatt and my colleagues at Thomas Nelson, we will define and execute our digital strategy going forward. What an important and exciting challenge. I am honored to be a part of it.

So, how can you help? I want to hear your thoughts on digital.

I know that there are a lot of ideas out there from experienced quarterbacks and maybe even other arm chair quarterbacks like myself. If you want to share your thoughts or ideas with me, please send an e-mail to my assistant, Janet Sanders, at jsanders@thomasnelson.com.

Janet will set up a time for us to meet. All I ask is that you outline your thoughts and send them in an e-mail to Janet and me prior to our meeting. I will listen.

This is how our digital strategy will unfold:

Step 1: Listen to the digital team. My first step was to hear the digital team’s thoughts and learn from them. I will be spending much more time with them. This is a very dedicated team that has tremendous passion for their work and contribution they are making to Nelson’s mission. It is amazing to see all they do; they inspire me.

Step 2: Listen to others internally. That’s where you come in and why I am writing this.

Step 3: Listen to the world class leaders and companies outside of Nelson. We will find the best thinkers and build on their knowledge for our strategy.

Step 4: Build an executable strategy.

Step 5: Execute the strategy and continually experiment and tweak the strategy. Change will be constant. We will celebrate and build on the successes. We will learn from the failures.

I will be blogging on what I learn and the strategy as it forms. This will clarify my thinking, communicate what is being learned and provide a forum for others’ feedback. Feel free to challenge my learnings and thinkings.

I invite you to be a part of the conversation.