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The New York Times can thank an uptick in subscribers — specifically digital subscribers — for its positive earnings report last week. The Times’ digital subscription effort, at first controversial, is now its most important source of revenue growth and shows how it can become a digital-only publisher. TSo how is its digital business doing overall? For the past six years, Times’ digital revenue (subscribers and ads) more than doubled to $442 million. Print-only revenue fell 18 percent to just over $1 billion in the same period. In 2015 Times’ leadership announced that they aimed to hit $800 million in overall digital revenue by 2020 — a goal that will be difficult at best. RMost of the digital gains are coming from digital subscribers. From 2011 to 2016, money from people who only pay for its online version rose more than five times, or 418 percent, to $233 million....
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JODIE ARCHER HAD always been puzzled by the success ofThe Da Vinci Code. She’d worked for Penguin UK in the mid-2000s, when Dan Brown’s thriller had become a massive hit, and knew there was no way marketing alone would have led to 80 million copies sold. So what was it, then? Something magical about the words that Brown had strung together? Dumb luck? The questions stuck with her even after she left Penguin in 2007 to get a PhD in English at Stanford. There she met Matthew L. Jockers, a cofounder of the Stanford Literary Lab, whose work in text analysis had convinced him that computers could peer into books in a way that people never could. Soon the two of them went to work on the “bestseller” problem: How could you know which books would be blockbusters and which would flop, and why? Over four years, Archer and Jockers fed 5,000 fiction titles published over the last 30 years into computers and trained them to “read”—to determine where sentences begin and end, to identify parts of speech, to map out plots. They then used so-called machine classification algorithms to isolate the features most common in bestsellers. The result of their work—detailed in The Bestseller Code, out this month—is an algorithm built to predict, with 80 percent accuracy, which novels will become mega-bestsellers. What does it like? Young, strong heroines who are also misfits (the type found in The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). No sex, just “human closeness.” Frequent use of the verb “need.” Lots of contractions. Not a lot of exclamation marks. Dogs, yes; cats, meh. In all, the “bestseller-ometer” has identified 2,799 features strongly associated with bestsellers....
Newsrooms are posting more of their content directly to social media platforms, but with little idea of what the rewards will be.
That insight comes from data presented by researchers at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University last week at a half-day event, “Digital News in a Distributed Environment.” Researchers surveyed more than 40 journalists and news media executives, from both national and local brands, as well as eight executives from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and Snapchat. They also held a roundtable attended by fifteen social media and audience editors. They found that a publisher’s business model is what determines its social media strategy – and no one solution works, said Claire Wardle, the research director at the Tow Center. While some publishers are optimistic about the new opportunities that social media provides, others feel powerless. And relationships between publishers and platforms are not always amicable, with one respondent referring to a platform as a “frenemy.”...
It’s 2016. We are landing rockets on floating platforms in the ocean. Engineers are developing high-speed transportation systems in which pressured capsules ride on air cushions facilitated by linear induction motors. A network of high-altitude Wi-Fi balloons is being designed to float on the edge of space so that everyone on the planet can connect to the Internet.
And ebooks turn pages.
What happened to the exciting digital future of ebooks?
As the leader in the digital book space, Amazon is doing very little to innovate around ebooks. Last week, ZDNet ran a series of articles titled “Why Amazon is the king of innovation.” As it pertains to Prime, drone delivery, and Amazon Web Services, Amazon is exceptionally innovative. Arguably the best. But finding one ebook in a vast digital store and reading it on an e-ink device is archaic compared to Amazon’s other initiatives. “It reads in the sunlight” is about as innovative as “It’s called a fax machine.”
Why are our friends in Seattle so slow when it comes to the future of reading?...
As we look forward to the coming year, the self-publishing world will undoubtedly present us with a few new surprises. As self-publishers, you probably have some thoughts on this topic as well. So, I felt it was timely to take a pause to collect a few 2016 predictions from some of the pros—those experts who have a proverbial finger on the pulse of industry changes. Many of these folks you will recognize as they have served us as reliable resources for BookWorks in the past. They include marketing strategists, publishers, and bloggers, in addition to the founder of Smashwords, one of the top self-publishing platforms in the world.
Learn about their prognostications and what they had to say when asked the question, “What do you predict for the self-publishing industry in 2016?”...
Textbook makers, bookstore owners and college student surveys all say millennials still strongly prefer print for pleasure and learning, a bias that surprises reading experts given the same group’s proclivity to consume most other content digitally. A University of Washington pilot study of digital textbooks found that a quarter of students still bought print versions of e-textbooks that they were given for free.
“These are people who aren’t supposed to remember what it’s like to even smell books,” said Naomi S. Baron, an American University linguist who studies digital communication. “It’s quite astounding.”
Last week, my seventh book, Philadelphia, was released. In many ways it is the best writing I have ever done, particularly in terms of fiction, and I thought the concept — a collection of short stories, a few op-ed essays, quotes, and lists, all relating to my beloved city of Philadelphia in one way or another — was interesting and appealing.
Clearly, very few people agreed because, well, it didn't exactly do Harry Potter numbers.Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive. This is my seventh time going through this process of self-publishing a book, so it's not like I wasn't prepared. I know the figures. I know that the average U.S. book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime and that over 60% of self-published authors make less than five thousand dollars per year from their writing....
It's an eye-opening report that looks beyond the hype surrounding these companies. Some of them are profitable (or at least claim to be), some aren't, but all of them have raised serious cash from starry-eyed investors (e.g., $96.3 million for BuzzFeed, $110 million for Vox).
The business press tends to regard such hefty sums as implicit evidence of success and/or promise -- why would venture capitalists risk so much scratch if there was no there there? -- but Michael reminds us that all of these companies rely, somewhat harrowingly, on advertising for revenue....
Newspapers aren't losing as much money as a few years ago, thanks to a small uptick in reader payments from digital paywalls and higher circulation prices....
Revenue continued to fall at newspapers last year as modest increases in circulation revenue failed to offset bigger declines in advertising, according to the latest earnings reports from the nation’s large, publicly traded newspaper companies.
Analysts say the good news—if there is any—is that the revenue decline is not as steep as a few years ago, thanks to a small uptick in reader payments from digital paywalls and increased subscription prices.
“I wouldn’t call it a renaissance for newspapers, but I would definitely call it a stabilization,” said Gordon Borrell, a media analyst and CEO of Borrell Associates....
Most writers simply begin writing the moment they come up with an ebook idea they feel is worth pursuing. However, it’s best to wait a moment…or a few moments…to focus and evaluate that idea. This helps your book have a chance of succeeding in the ever-more competitive ebook market. To give your book a good start, take the following six steps before you write an ebook...
Thanks to the advent of self-publishing, crowdfunding and e-commerce, indie artists of all kinds are launching their creative careers as solopreneurs...
...“When you make something easier to do, people do more of it,” wrote Thompson. “‘Print-on-demand’ publishing is about to do the same thing to books. It’ll keep them alive—by allowing them to be much weirder.
”By ‘weirder’ Thompson means more individualized and diverse. And he was correct. Bowker has reported increases in the numbers of book titles published overall for years, despite decreases in titles published by traditional publishers. The bibliographic information clearinghouse reported the growth has been ”driven almost exclusively by a strong self-publishing market.”...
On top of the shifts in time spent with media and the fragmentation of audience engagement, media companies are also challenged with shifts in revenue. More traditional media companies like newspapers, radio, local TV stations, direct mail, and directories experienced a total decline in revenue ranging from $25 million to $1.7 billion from 2012 to 2013 according to Borrell Associates 2013 Local Advertising Outlook.
All of these factors are taking a big toll on media companies, forcing leaders at media companies to face their challenges head on. As I speak with more and more consultants, General Managers, VPs of Sales, and Directors of Marketing they tell me that if their companies don’t adapt to accommodate their audience and their advertisers, they’re going to fall behind. Here are the top challenges these media companies have shared with me, and how we believe inbound marketing can help them meet and defeat those obstacles....
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We can’t all be J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer, but if you’re working on a book, it’s nice to know what helps with success.
First, don’t get too long-winded: Surprisingly, the average length of a best-selling book is 375 pages. (Lord of the Rings is definitely an outlier here.)
As far as setting goes, most bestselling books are set in the U.S., with lawyers or detectives as main characters. Romance is, by far, the most lucrative genre. Romance books bring in $1.4 billion a year, with crime books in second place. Interestingly enough, people finish romance novels but often ditch religious books.
While the U.S. leads for its publishing industry, Germany, France, China, Japan and the UK also have large markets for authors. If you’re publishing an e-book, Amazon might be the best bet –– the company controls more than half of the e-book market. Authors also get to keep 70 percent of what they make on Amazon....
For all the chaos and unpredictability and the sometimes appalling spectacle of this election season, the question of which candidate actually deserves to be president has never been a difficult one.
Vogue has no history of political endorsements. Editors in chief have made their opinions known from time to time, but the magazine has never spoken in an election with a single voice. Given the profound stakes of this one, and the history that stands to be made, we feel that should change.
Vogue endorses Hillary Clinton for president of the United States....
It's unclear if the Brexit will have any specific effects on the digital media industry in the short or long term, but there are numerous potential consequences already on the table.
Earlier this month, Group M, the global media arm of WPP, tweaked its TV and newspaper ad spend forecast to compensate for a potential Brexit, according to The Guardian. Previous forecasts said U.K. TV ad spend would grow 7.1% in 2016, but that number drastically reduced to 2.6%. Furthermore, Group M lowered its total U.K. ad spend growth estimates from 7.2% to 6.3%.
This decrease stemmed from ad buyers' hesitation to spend money in the weeks before the referendum. Had the U.K. voted to remain in the EU, the ad market likely would have stabilized. But a vote to leave would have placed more downward pressure on U.K. ad spend, according to Sir Martin Sorrell, the CEO of WPP.
But even with these adjustments, the estimates still place the U.K. as one of the fastest-growing ad markets.
Do you want more exposure for your content?
Have you considered publishing your content on Apple News?
Apple News lets you deliver both visual and text-based content directly to a growing number of iOS mobile devices.
In this article, you’ll discover how to become an Apple News publisher....
Local daily newspaper reporter?
How soon will we have to add this once-stable occupation to the list of jobs that once were — occupations once numerous that slid into obsolescence? (Not to mention the even more colorful spittleman [hospital attendant], rotarius [wheelwright], and hamberghmaker [horse collar maker].)
In this morning’s released annual census, the American Society of News Editors found its first double-digit decline in newsroom count since the Great Recession of seven years ago. Newsroom jobs dropped 10.4 percent — down to 32,900 full-time journalists at nearly 1,400 U.S. dailies, 2014 over 2013. That’s the loss of 3,800 jobs in just one year. (Detailed table at bottom of this column.)...
For many authors, self-publishing is a first option instead of a backup to traditional publishing. Two years ago I broke down the costs to self-publish a high-quality book. The costs covered how much a traditional publisher typically spends on a book.
The book publishing industry is one of the last industries to go digital, and things are constantly in flux. What worked yesterday might not work next week.
Putting together a quality book involves not just writing it, but getting it edited and formatted, designing a cover, and having a marketing strategy around it.
The rise of new tools, platforms, and new entrants to the publishing space have made it even easier and faster to get a book out into the world. As a follow-up to my first piece, I’ve written a piece on how to publish on a budget....
While the KDP Kids’ Book Creator still has a few rough spots (which Amazon is presumably ironing out in response to user feedback), it’s a good start. Those of us who have worked in children’s publishing for years recognized this move for what it was: a game changer.
Just how much has Amazon’s new free software changed the game?
With the release of the Kid’s Book Creator, as well as the Kindle Fire HD Kids Edition tablet, Amazon is investing in illustrated ebooks. And they need content.
So now comes the big question. Are you ready to ride this wave?...
Amid widening concerns that another startup bubble has formed, digital media remains a white-hot market among the private-investment community.
Last year, venture capital poured at least $683 million into digital media companies worldwide -- more than twice the $277 million invested in 2013, according to Preqin, which tracks venture-capital investments.
That investment comes as traditional media companies like The New York Times and Condé Nast cut staff, trim costs and turn over every possible rock in search of new revenue streams. Meanwhile, digital media companies -- which have a fraction of old media's revenue and even less of their profits -- are awash in investor cash....
… We began our New York meeting by trying to understand why media companies have largely failed to take advantage of the incredible power of the Web and mobile devices.
We identified four forces that have stymied innovation: 1. Content Management Systems. They are designed to convert old media into new media and they provide little flexibility to experiment with new journalistic forms. 2. Newsroom culture. The rhythm in most newsrooms is based on a well-established work flow that produces predictable content. It’s not easy to suggest a wholesale change. 3. Product managers on the business side. They’re accustomed to selling the old recipe and often seem perplexed by new approaches. 4. Editors/news directors. They’ve got other priorities — such as having to choose people for another round of layoffs — and often don’t have the resources for a new venture....
...What small and large digital publishers ought to learn from these figures is that the public is moving so quickly to mobile consumption of news and social sharing that they need to take action.
In this kind of environment that requires rapid shifts in tactics and strategy, small news organizations that live only on the web have an advantage. They can move faster without having to worry about generating revenue to service debt or other legacy costs.
The rise of mobile and the rise of social media sharing represent a huge opportunity for those who are ready for it. And a huge missed one for those who are not.
Consumers don't make a distinction between traditional publishers and self-publishers when buying ebooks, according to a wide-ranging new study.
The Book Industry Study Group’s latest report, Consumer Attitudes Towards Ebook Reading, also shows that readers prefer ebooks over print books in 10 out of 14 subject areas, including all fiction genres.
Ebooks have a big lead over print in all areas of fiction, covering romance/erotic, mystery/thriller, general, religious, young adult, science fiction/fantasy and literary.
The ebook lead is narrower in non-fiction for business/finance and history/politics/social sciences and print takes over for how-to guides/manuals and travel while comics/graphic novels and cookbooks are preferred in print by a long way....
The Kindle Singles store, according to its editor David Blum, is “like a bookstore where the manager also edits the books.” Blum is that manager-editor, and under his guidance the store has grown to feature nearly 400 works since launching in January 2011. When the store went live, its mission was to publish the kind of long-form journalism that has become harder to find as more magazines have shuttered and those still standing allocate fewer pages to in-depth pieces.
Since the Singles program started, it has gained enough respect to attract major names—among the many heavy hitters who’ve released Singles are Christopher Hitchens and Stephen King—and to delve into fiction.
Blum, a veteran of alternative weeklies—he worked at both the Village Voice and the New York Press, during the papers’ headier days—has gained a fair amount of attention since the store took off. In an April profile in the New York Times, Leslie Kaufman wrote that he has “transformed himself from doctor of the dying to midwife of the up-and-coming,” becoming “a man whom authors want to court.”...
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The digital divide is narrowing and digital revenue arrives just in time.