The first day of the two-day Publishing App Expo, hosted by Mediabistro, Galleycat, and eBookNewser, brought together digitally-minded publishers from all over and inspired a lively discussion at the New Yorker Hotel on Wednesday.
In his keynote, titled “How Nerdfighters Can Save Publishing,” New York Times bestselling author and popular vlogger John Green said, “I didn’t market anything ever,” adding that publishers should see the Internet as an extension of their work, not as a means to market it, and used his own vlogging experience as a parallel for how publishers should treat their content in the digital sphere. Green stressed the importance of user feedback (many of his videos are direct answers to questions his users pose), and how digital is changing content to something publishers create with their audience, not just for them. His central message was that while digital has opened up numerous channels of communication between publishers and consumers, it’s up to publishers to take advantage of those channels.
One of the morning sessions, “Beyond the Paywall: Real Life Business Models for Apps,” covered a full spectrum of app pricing theories for what is still a changing frontier. Jenny Lam, co-founder of Jackson Fish Market, which has a free app with subscription fee, admitted the failure of sending coupons and promotional codes. Instead, what worked for them, Lam said, was giving away free books within the app on their bookshelf. At Comixology, co-founder and CEO David Steinberger said they give away a large number of the first issue of series (they have over 800 free SKUs), in order to get readers hooked so they’ll buy subsequent issues; Steinberger noted that even 99 cents is too much in some consumer’s eyes to pay for content. And Robert Macdonald, senior v-p, business development for Scribd, said that until someone creates a payment platform that makes it easy for users to buy, that there isn’t a demand for paid models.
The most spirited discussion of the day came in the afternoon session: “Kindle Fire: Will Amazon Ignite the Industry or Burn It Down.” There were differing opinions on numerous topics, including how the Kindle Fire changes the role of publishers. “People use it personally,” said Arsney Lebedev, managing director of Signus Labs, a game developer, stressing the Fire’s utility as a home for personal media in multiple formats. Debbie Weil, founder and CEO of Voxie Media, however, wasn’t so sure, saying no one really knows how it’s going to change publishing. Weil called the Kindle Fire a “clunky iPad” and stated that while the tablet makes it easier for users to buy, she’s still not sure what its impact on publishers will be. Ron Richards, v-p of external relations for Graphicly, brought up the point that unlike the Amazon Kindle, which is used almost exclusively for reading, the Kindle Fire is going to have a different use for different people. “There’s an association you establish with a device,” he said, and, to illustrate the difference between how the Kindle Fire can be used, Richards said he’s currently reading Neal Stephenson’s Reamde on his Kindle Fire, while Lebedev said he could never read a long book on it. Weil, for her part, stated, “I wouldn’t pick up a Fire and first think ‘Great, this is where I’m going to read my e-books,'” and that she said she watched videos first.
A further expectation, Richards said, was that as the Kindle Fire and digital content expand their influence, we’ll see more conversion companies like Graphicly that say to writers and content creators: “you just make great content, and we’ll deploy it for you.” As for pricing, Weil echoed the point made by Steinberger from the morning’s panel, saying, “Pricing is a big problem because people are expecting to pay [as low as] 99 cents.” Weil expected to see more “dis-aggregation” of digital content, citing an example of a consumer being more willing to buy a series of 10 short books at 99 cents instead of one longer book for $9.99. For digital pricing, Weil said, “Low price expectations are driving this just as much as the device makers.”
