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.