Four Things for
2008.
Peter Collingridge
MD, apt
www.aptstudio.com

Who Are We?

Today 1. Case Studies: Building authors and
communities online (x4)
2. Where we think publishing is at
3. Four Things for 2008
4. Questions

1.1 Case Study: Stephenie Meyer
Author Series Teen vampire novels
Outselling HP7 in USA
Obsessive fanbase

1.1 Case Study:
Stephenie Meyer

1.2.1 Case Study: www.canongate.net
Community and 1997-2002
Publishers
“at last - a publisher’s site that feels like a
cool club stocked with well-read friends,
rather than a lazy corporate exercise”
The Guardian
5/5 - The Book Lover’s Guide to the
Internet

1.2.2 Community 4th Estate / Press Books
Fifth Estate (2006) Simple, achievable
Flawless execution

Community
Fifth Estate

1.3 Building an James Frey
author online Anita Shreve
Elizabeth Pisani
Mitch Albom
Jeff Howe

Jeff Howe WIRED Editor
CrowdSourcing Lead Random House Business Books,
Summer 2008
“Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job
traditionally performed by a designated
agent (usually an employee) and
outsourcing it to an undefined, generally
large group of people in the form of an
open call.”

Coversourcing Connect marketing to audience
Raise profile
Media coverage
Community
Debate
Innovation
Sell the book?

1.4 Case Study Life of Pi
Single Book Sites Salam Pax
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Hey, Nostradamus!
Londonstani
For One More Day
The Long Tail

The Long Tail
Chris Anderson

2008
Where do we see
publishing at?

2008
Snapshot

2008
Snapshot

2008
Snapshot

2008
Snapshot

2008
but yet....

2008
there is hope...
online

2008
indeed...

But... From where we are, the web is the future of
it’s not all bad the book.
news. In fact.... And publishing
And bookselling
And marketing books.
You just need to try much, much harder.

2008 2008 is crunch time for publishing, on
Summary many (if not all) fronts
- Relevance
- eBooks
- Self-publishing
- Free distribution
- Amazon / Waterstones
- Apple
- Polarisation of high street

Four things

One Identify (or hire) and empower the digital
natives in your organisation.
Listen to them. Trust them.
Learn from them.

Two “How do I want to change the way I talk to
people?’”

Three Start a blog (for your most valuable,
popular property)

Four Get a digitisation strategy.

Summary Best thing ever for finding readers &
What is the web? making more money out of them. And
giving them what they want.
Try to do it well, with an open mind.
But do it with passion.

thanks all images by russell davies
http://flickr.com/photos/russelldavies/
hello@aptstudio.com russelldavies.typepad.com

# Comment by anon @ 1:40 pm, January 12, 2008: |Edit This
What should I talk
about? Paint a future of what the world might look like if we don’t engage now?
How many comparisons to other companies / cultures that might tell us what
the future looks like?
www.aptstudio.com/TimesEmit
How nobody is yet investing enough in UK publishing to really understand
what the potential upside could be. How differentiation continues to be all
and yet we insist on aping and homogenising. And by the time someone is
really making money out of a community or brand, it might be too late to
catch up.
I’d be as apocalyptic as possible. I think even the publishers who have
bought into the idea of this are unsure how brave or committed to be.
Anything you can do to move the debate on beyond one where we’re all
paralysed by the speed of our own irrelevance and just prefer to keep our
head down til the Tsunami hits. Please do anything that really get them
talking / thinking at least…
# Comment by Lindsey @ 3:47 pm, January 12, 2008: |Edit This
Let’s face it - last year’s seminar was atrocious and showed how far behind a
lot of the industry are.
Most publishers won’t fully embrace digital until they are completely
convinced it’s worthwhile and risk-free. And you’re never going to have a
brilliant campaign/community/or content unless you take a few risks.
Perhaps you can persuade us to experiment and take some chances. And
even if things don’t go to plan and aren’t successful it’s not the end of the
world, you’ll have learned something that will benefit you in the future.
Persuade publishers to stop playing it safe and get involved.
# Comment by George @ 10:43 pm, January 10, 2008: |Edit This
I’d be interested in discussion of building communities from scratch versus
leveraging existing communities and networks - quite different challenges in
my experience.