To Each According To His Needs
Paul Hilts -- 7/3/00
IDG finds tech partners to create radical answers to the question "What is publishing?"
"I'm a businessman, not a book publisher." When IDG Books chairman and CEO John Kilcullen was quoted in the Wall Street Journal last October, that statement bore many interpretations. Kilcullen is not a literary publisher; he is in this business for profit; and perhaps most important for the future of the business, Kilcullen believes that publishing is about disseminating information, not making books.
This last point was underscored at BEA when Kilcullen announced several new services from IDG based on the company's brands and editorial products. Chief among these was the Dummies Answer Network, a practical computer-oriented Answer-Man-type Help Service combining Dummies-style answers and search technology from Ask Jeeves, the popular Net search tool. Kilcullen explained, "Consumers can go to the IDG Web site, and ask natural-language questions about how to use computers, software or the Internet. The Jeeves engine will search all our materials on the topic and produce answers, all for free. When we started, Jeeves had 6,000 questions with ready answers; on the first day, we added 60,000 of our own. We'll be monitoring the Dummies Answer Net daily, so if there are any questions it can't answer, we can update the information by the next day, and the Network will get smarter as it g s along.
"This is an extension of the Dummies brand, based on electronic versions of the content that's in the books," he noted, "but now it's gathered for easy searching."
Kilcullen also described a new free e-newsletter, "Dummies Daily," which delivers tips on computer use and purchases every business day to readers who subscribe at the IDG site. "The idea is to make the brands complete resource centers for the customers," he explained. Personal Finance and Health & Fitness will have their own Dummies Dailies soon. And, added Brenda McLaughlin, senior v-p of Internet operations, a new site called Frommers.com combines the two ideas, providing answers to travel questions (though using menus and keywords, rather than a live Jeeves search), at the same time sending a weekly newsletter with hot deals in travel.
And what pays for all this free service? "Advertising," McLaughlin replied. "These subscribers are the best leads for advertisers, because they're ready to buy the products in the areas they subscribe to."
Kilcullen amplified IDG's basic vision of publishing after the Internet: "Up until now, publishing has been about 'one size fits all.' Each book was the best approximation of what would suit the largest number of people. But we don't believe in that. Each customer has his own needs, and our job is to fulfill those needs using our trusted brands."
And Now, Custom Publishing
Last week IDG dramatically extended the idea of publishing to an audience of one by announcing an alliance with iUniverse to distribute its most popular titles electronically, and to encourage consumers to make their own customized books by combining parts of IDG titles.
Under this plan, which was expected to take about 90 days to prepare, IDG would send iUniverse more than 500 of its most popular titles, including 100 bestselling Dummies books, 300 Cliffs Notes and 125 Frommer's Travel Guides. iUniverse will serve as the back-office fulfillment house for the new program, digitizing the titles and holding them in its format neutral repository. "Any consumer can browse the full text of these books," said executive v-p John Ball, "then either order the standard text in e-book form, or in print-on-demand form, or select chapters to be assembled into a custom book."
Richard Tam, CEO of iUniverse, told PW, "Books in any standard e-format can be delivered in minutes. Those printed on demand will be shipped from one of our network of printers within 48 hours."
He continued, "The custom texts are the most interesting. The different page layouts and numbers from the original texts are discarded, and a new template, combining graphic elements of the Dummies, Frommers and Cliffs designs will create new layouts and paginations on the fly."
The example company officials used in describing the service was a traveler visiting Paris. The consumer could choose the night life and museums sections of Frommer's Guide to Paris, add in several chapters from Wine for Dummies, plus the Cliffs Notes to French History. The custom book could then be delivered in any e-book format the customer requested, or printed in trade paperback and shipped to the customer. "Or," Tam noted, "we could send the text through whatever retail outlet was indicated. We're providing back-office and fulfillment services; we don't intend to become retailers."
Though retail prices for the custom books are not yet set, Ball d sn't think the pricing or the royalties will constitute much of a problem. "Most standard trade book contracts today carry clauses regarding excerpts and anthologies. These uses will be pretty much like those."
Kilcullen pointed out what the relationship with iUniverse would mean to IDG and its customers in the long term: "This partnership will allow consumers to selectively mix and match content from hundreds of books and put them into new, custom-printed or digital versions. This technology clearly gives us the power to provide more value and choice to our customers.... We have more than 4,000 active titles, and we are committed to getting them all into electronic form."
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