Stay Ahead Of The Shift
- 1. Stay Ahead of the Shift: What Product-Centric Publishers Can Do to Flourish in a Community-Centric Web World BEA, 28 May 2009 Mike Shatzkin
- 2. The fundamental premises:
- 3. Things will change The fundamental premises:
- 4. It is necessary to have a view of the future to anticipate change The fundamental premises:
- 5. The market and how you reach it will shift in some ways between when you sign titles and publish them for the foreseeable future The fundamental premises:
- 6. You must try new things: it is as important to be nimble and opportunistic as it is to be analytical when you do The fundamental premises:
- 7. For maximum benefit: new things should be tried within a framework of understanding (your view of the future) The fundamental premises:
- 8. A lot happens in 20 years
- 9. TV 1968-1988 : Broadcast networks go from totally dominant to highly challenged In 20 Years
- 10. Music 1980-2000: Record companies fat from sales of new formats to a total breakdown of the business model In 20 Years
- 11. Newspapers 1989-2009: From stable cash cows thanks primarily to classified to endangered species In 20 Years
- 12. Mass-market paperbacks 1975-1995: from multi million dollar bestseller advances to category strugglers In 20 Years
- 13. Online access 1989-2009: From klunky dial-up through a closed online network to the Internet in your hand In 20 Years
- 14. Books 1989-2009: From pre-Internet, pre-POD, pre-long tail, pre-SUPERSTORES to now In 20 Years
- 15. Books 2009-2029: Thats what we need to think about today In 20 Years
- 16. A point of view: the world of content in 20 years
- 17. All in the cloud ; piracy and license control no longer a problem (DRM obsolete); almost all file access of any kind is tethered 20 Years from now
- 18. We are all both licensors and licensees 20 Years from now
- 19. Access through multiple devices/screens (synonymous) 20 Years from now
- 20. Nugget (more granular) and niche organization for everything: search, content, social community combined 20 Years from now
- 21. Format- specific publishing gives way to format -agnostic publishing 20 Years from now
- 22. Community gateways, portals, upstream aggregates 20 Years from now
- 23. Crowd-sourced content; crowd-sourced editing and curation 20 Years from now
- 24. Professional and personal super-editing and super-curation 20 Years from now
- 25. Subscription models common; per-item sales relatively rare 20 Years from now
- 26. Mass market (cross-niche) content arising from niches (a new farm system) 20 Years from now
- 27. 20 Years from now The publishing business has a much larger B2B component
- 28. Perhaps: one general trade publisher
- 29. c Aggregates from across the internet universe One general trade publisher:
- 30. Delivers books (ebooks, multi-media, group-creations), but mostly POD One general trade publisher:
- 31. Press runs? If theres someplace to sell them One general trade publisher:
- 32. Publishing skills applied within the niches and the nuggets
- 33. Own, manage, administer, or lead a nugget or a niche (or work for somebody who does) Within the niches and nuggets:
- 34. Generate, curate, aggregate content of any kind from and for the niche Within the niches and nuggets:
- 35. Employ skills of selection, editing, formatting for presentation, marketing Within the niches and nuggets:
- 36. For many biggest business: B2B content development for the niche Within the niches and nuggets:
- 37. Not particularly relevant, but many here would ask: Books?
- 38. Sure, because of POD, new ones appear all the time Books?
- 39. More new titles are created by readers than by publishers (might already be true!) Books?
- 40. Press run titles are the exception, not the rule Books?
- 41. And reading on paper is definitely retro Books?
- 42. The uncomfortable bottom line on this change: from N to X
- 43. Value moves from conte n t to conte x t From content to context
- 44. Ownership of attention will be more important than ownership of content From content to context
- 45. Value moves to scarcity From content to context
- 46. Content creation and distribution no longer require scale From content to context
- 47. Niche by niche and nugget by nugget: community attention (i.e. marketing) does require scale From content to context
- 48. If you have capital, where is competitive advantage? From content to context
- 49. So todays value creation isnt tomorrows
- 50. You win today by owning valuable content and shelf space to merchandise it Today vs. Tomorrow
- 51. You win tomorrow by owning valuable eyeballs and mental bandwidth You win today by owning valuable content and shelf space to merchandise it Today vs. Tomorrow
- 52. The historical revenue model was clear Today vs. Tomorrow
- 53. The next revenue model is not (yet) The historical revenue model was clear Today vs. Tomorrow
- 54. Transitional decades coming: costs rise, revenue falls
- 55. Supporting multiple models: print books, ebooks, and new forms The Transition
- 56. Legacy content (yours and everybody elses) all being digitized The Transition
- 57. Legacy content (yours and everybody elses) all being tagged and organized The Transition
- 58. Digitizing of rights databases could be more expensive than digitizing content itself! The Transition
- 59. New screens, platforms, channels proliferate and all create some level of expense The Transition
- 60. Digital natives inventing a future (social networking, uses of links, redefining roles, determining formats of presentation, feedback, mixing of media) The Transition
- 61. Things that happen during this transition
- 62. Lines blur among newspapers, magazines, books, games Things that happen during the transition
- 63. Content finds markets and pricing models; markets find (and create and promote) content Things that happen during the transition
- 64. Access to audiences remains the key: NY Times and B&N were ; Google and Amazon are ; Facebook and Twitter to be ? For how long? Things that happen during the transition
- 65. Darwinian processes (with a boost from technology) create vertical clusters (and do you know Ning?) Things that happen during the transition
- 66. The old model still works; just for fewer titles (and fewer general trade publishers and fewer bookstores) Things that happen during the transition
- 67. Back to the present and near future: change we can feel
- 68. Soon: one bookstore chain exacerbates critical mass issues Change we can feel
- 69. Soon: five, then four, then X general trade publishers Soon: one bookstore chain exacerbates critical mass issues Change we can feel
- 70. Mass market events: fewer in number, faster to cycle, and shorter in duration (and not just for books) Change we can feel
- 71. Niche- and self-publishing and blogs as a farm system: will become standard practice Change we can feel
- 72. More and more paper books short run and POD Change we can feel
- 73. Ebooks increasingly have content edge: more of it and more timely Change we can feel
- 74. More difficult to launch new titles Change we can feel
- 75. Harder to sustain backlist Change we can feel
- 76. From stable to ever-changing marketing vehicles Change we can feel
- 77. Indispensability of social networks as word-of-mouth device Change we can feel
- 78. What pushes (or nudges) publishers to vertical
- 79. Necessity (horizontal marketing and sales channels diminish) What pushes publishers
- 80. New marketing opportunities arising on the web What pushes publishers
- 81. Costs skyrocket marketing outside known niches What pushes publishers
- 82. Natural development of in-niche relationships What pushes publishers
- 83. Web sites as a market for content further drive vertical aggregation (across publishers) What pushes publishers
- 84. Remembering our own fundamentals: what does a publisher do ?
- 85. Connects content to markets (20 th century) What does a publisher do?
- 86. Connects databases to networks (21 st century) What does a publisher do?
- 87. Understands communities of content consumers: what they want and how to reach them What does a publisher do?
- 88. Recognizes creative possibilities in not-fully-developed ideas What does a publisher do?
- 89. Coordinates the disparate activities necessary to connect a creator to an audience; sometimes to connect creators to each other What does a publisher do?
- 90. Manages a massive amount of detail What does a publisher do?
- 91. The publishers position today to get to tomorrow: pros and cons
- 92. books are ultimate niche products publishers are trained niche marketers skilled at content creation, development can put a souvenir on the shelf can target-distribute URLs Pros:
- 93. product- and book-centricity not continuous (most) not vertically focused lack resources to experiment lack a culture of technology or a culture of experimentation Cons:
- 94. What we said when we started: Were in an era of rapid change We must experiment and re-invent Do that within a framework created by a view of the future
- 95. The view of the future presented here: Move toward vertical and community
- 96. So whats a publishers 21 st century action plan?
- 97. First and foremost: understand yourself vertically! (BISAC, Special Sales) The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 98. When you know what your verticals are (or might be): research your vertical web world The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 99. Construct business metrics and track financials by verticals The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 100. Have a sensible Web strategy: 1 presence for B2B; at least 1 for each vertical The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 101. Create a complete email list strategy: vertical-sensitive and with an author-facing component The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 102. Over time: reshuffle your publishing portfolio The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 103. Over time: maximize cumulative effects of web marketing efforts The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 104. Over time: construct alliances that will enable new businesses and new business models The Publishers 21 st Century Plan
- 105. And if this doesnt work for you, create another view of the future that does! But HAVE ONE !