Planning and Investing in Digital Products

Planning and Investing in Digital Products Brad Scott Publishing Training Centre 23 March 2010

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Aims of this session
To give broad overview of the shape of digital publishing
To outline the options for generating revenue
To illustrate some of the issues and challenges in planning, costing and delivering products

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Topics
Product types
Business models
Planning and delivering digital products

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Brad Scott
1990-2001: Routledge: Digital publisher
2001-2008: Semantico: Account director
2008-present: Consulting

Digital publisher
Project management, data, marketing plan
Arden Shakespeare
Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals
Projects with UK National Archives

Data consulting, project planning
Oxford University Press
Modern Language Association
Wiley-Blackwell
Cambridge University Press
Taylor & Francis
Palgrave Macmillan
Brill NV

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Digital Publishing
Publishing conglomerates
Capitalist commoditization of 'content'
+ Digital technologies (especially the web)
Potential for democratic access, creation, participation
= Tension

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Digital Publishing
60% of publishers had less than 10% of revenue from digital in 2009
Huge variety across sectors

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Varieties of digital publishing
We are all digital publishers now

No single delivery method
Different services types/user technologies
Aggregators
Ebooks
Content collections, databases, journals
Supporting services
Mobiles/PDA
Apps

Aggregators
Low risk for licensing publishers
Low return
Ovid (hundreds of journals, databases, books)
CSA/ProQuest
Credo (Xrefer)
And Google...

Ebooks
Books read using a portable device
Books delivered as pdfs online (myiLibrary, ebrary, Dawson era or Cambridge Collections Online)
Any digital book content

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Varieties of digital publishing Ebooks:

Ebooks:
Very rapid change in devices
Formats: Adobe, epub, MS Lit, mobipocket, Kindle, BBeB, OEB, DX
Impact on print sales?
But, ebooks are no longer a nice to have

Ebook take-up
“ Four percent of British have read an e-book”
US publishing net sales 2008 = $24.3 billion
US ebooks $113 million 2008 up 68.4% = 0.5% of turnover
T&F: 22,000 titles = 10% total turnover

Ebook platforms
Credo Reference
EBL
MyiLibrary
NetLibrary
ebrary
Dawson era

Dawsonera
PDF transformations, slicing, encryption, watermarking
DRM ebook delivery platform
Flexible business rules
Metered usage
eCommerce integration

Audio content
Themed collection

Single platform: multiple sites
ORO Core
ORO Premium
Syndication
Digital Reference Shelf

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Varieties of digital publishing Book + Multiple choice questions

User modifications

Linking

Apps
iPhone, Google’s Android OS, a Blackberry or other PDA
150,000 apps on iStore, 2bn downloads

Augmented reality

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Revenue generation
Sell product outright
Sell subscription (individual, institution)
Pay per view
Metered (timed) access
Sell advertising space
Syndicate/license content

Free with premium paid-for service
Sell supporting materials
Give it away to support an (expensive) event
Get authors to pay (or comment)
Free/donations

Cory Doctorow With a Little Help
Self publishing
Free for download and audio
Lulu.com for hard copies
+ ask for donation
Requires community support

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Delivering digital products Components of Digital Products

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Delivering digital products
Data
Hardware
Software
Access control / Digital Rights Management
Integration with other systems
Discovery

Data
Articles/chapters/books
Classification/taxonomy
Metadata (publisher info / DOIs / SEO)
Images/video/sound
Exams and test data
Statistics
Button text etc (internationalised content)
User-generated content

Access control
Fundamental part of online publishing infrastructure
Who/what/when
Credentials
Statistics

Integrating with other systems
Order processing
eCommerce
Editorial workflow
Royalties and financial
Corporate website

XML Last Workflow

XML First Workflow

Discovery
Google
Yahoo
Microsoft
Federated search/Metasearch
Metadata harvesting
Search Engine Optimisation

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Delivering digital products Costing digital products

Data
Consultancy
Hardware
Software development and licences
Hosting
Support and maintenance
Other internal resource
Depreciation and capital expenditure

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Delivering digital products Planning digital products

Process
Initial planning and product conception
Project team
In-house or outsource?
Tendering
Design phase
Content creation
Development/implementation
Sales and marketing
Post launch

Initial planning
Business goals and strategy
Why do it at all? Benefits to customer
Market analysis: different competitors compared with print
Data analysis, risk analysis, focus groups
Target platform: online; mobile; accessibility
Can you do it? Company capabilities
Approvals process & success criteria

Strategic objectives?
Ensure financial stability
Engage with customer via the media they want
Separate commissioning and creation of content from presentation
Deliver and disseminate content faster
Enable re-use of content
Focus editorial resource on services rather than products
Streamline workflows

Project team
Publisher
Project sponsor
Marketing
Data/Production
Project manager
Developer
Account manager
Project manager
Lead developer

In-house or outsource
What is required?
Get advice
Are skills available?
Strategic planning: mixture of outsourcing and in-house activities

Tendering
Request for Proposals (RPF)
Vendors supply response
Presentations and demonstrations
Vendor selection

Design phase
Requirements gathering
Deliverables
Information architecture
User-focussed design
Specification
Costs
Schedule

Content creation
Incorporating digital content should fundamentally alter the production process
New content types: Quality Assurance (QA)

Development contract
Fixed price or time and materials
Deliverables
Site specification
Costs
Schedule
Hosting
Support
Change process

System design and planning
Information architecture, User Interface (UI) design, graphic design, technical design
System implementation, deployment, testing
Iterative development, project management, User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

Iterative development
Regular releases for early client visibility and feedback
Converge on client requirements over development life-cycle
Quality assessment at the core of development
Continuous measurement of project process and quality
User testing throughout development

Sales and Marketing
Maintain and update
System support
Dedicated support team to cope with availability issues both in and out of normal office hours
Site maintenance
New features, data revisions, enhancements and bug fixes

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Some challenges
Skill base
Data
User-centred design
User-generated content and social networking
Management
Routes to market

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk New skills and roles
Information architect
Project manager
Digital library sales manager
User experience designer/tester
Discoverability/SEO/taxonomist
Social media manager

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Reading
Tools of Change for Publishing. http://toc.oreilly.com/
The Bookseller: http://www.thebookseller.com
STM: http://www.stm-assoc.org/
The discovery blog: http://blogs.semantico.com/discovery-blog/
Institute for the Future of the Book: http://www.futureofthebook.org/
Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog http://jwikert.typepad.com/
ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/ “a blog that provides analysis of web products and trends”

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Other Information
Journal of Electronic Publishing ( http://www.journalofelectronicpublishing.org/ )
Information World Review: http://www.iwr.co.uk/
Kasdorf, William E. (ed) The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing 2003
eConsultancy blog: http://econsultancy.com/blog
Online Information at Olympia (1-3 December) http://www.online-information.co.uk/

www.brambletye-publishing.co.uk Thank you [email_address] 07939 226364

Planning and Investing in Digital Products

by Brad Scott

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