In the old days families watched just the big three or five TV networks—mass-appeal shows like The Love Boat—and that was it. Then the numbers started dropping, and people panicked. But why? Viewers hadn’t wandered far. Millions, for example, were watching cable, including the specialty networks now owned by—you guessed it—the same big networks. NBC Universal is now behind USA Networks, while Disney owns not just ABC but also ESPN.
Today many people are getting their TV fixes online; and, again, the big networks have shown themselves adept at getting a piece of the pie. In short, the viewers are still there. But you may need to advertise in two different spots if you want to hook both the young Web-oriented viewer and his more traditional mom, because they are different markets.
Same crossroad, same need for specialization
I think the book industry may be nearing the same crossroads that television came to. Numbers are down! Oh no! Nobody reads anymore! Or do they? Consider the following scenarios, all based on people I know:
1) An older person is not buying as many books for herself because she is retired now and trying to save her money. Is she lost as a customer? No. She dotes on her grandchild, and every year she buys him books for birthdays and holidays. Target some good kiddie-book marketing at older people, and you may earn back some of their book-buying dollars.
2) A young professional, trying to pay off her student loan, has been getting most of her fiction at the library these days. Is she lost as a customer? No. She’ll buy nearly any book she can find which relates to her developing career—and often, her boss will pay her back for them if she asks. Target some good professional and financial books in the trade journals and personal development mags, and not only will you get her money, you’ll get her employer’s money too.
3) A young, hip, gadget-loving techie has been enjoying the wealth of free content out there on the Web and would sooner die than pay for a blog he is used to reading for free. Is he lost as a customer? No. Get him a decently priced e-book gizmo and some $5 or under bargain sci-fi from an indie press, and he’s with you all the way. The e-book reader people need to get their competitively priced products advertised on the trendy, popular blogs of the day.
4) A kid who struggles with reading and finds school a challenge. Any hope of getting him on board as a reader? Absolutely. Some CD-ROM-based edutainment to work on his reading comprehension and engage him with literature, and you can get him reading. Kids love gadgets and games and technology. Imagine if one of the big kiddie presses made its works available to schools in some sort of subscription database where kids could log in through their school and have their own reading program, logging in on every visit and resuming exactly where they left off. Has any publisher ever tried to make such an opportunity—such a revenue stream—available?
5) A non-reader usually enjoys world travel and will devour any book or magazine he can find about his chosen destination. Sell him a travel book, sure, but get the man a cheap e-book reader too. Imagine a Kindle-esque, always-on network that can make suggestions based on a GPS chip implanted in the gizmo. He turns it on, and it tells him he is half a day from the Grand Canyon, and would he like to download a travel guide and map? Or perhaps an audio tour? And as he tucks in for the evening, perhaps a murder mystery set in the very spot he’s currently visiting?
6) A father isn’t really a reader himself—his job keeps him too busy. But he has a large family, and his wife and kids love to read. He probably buys a few dozen books a year as gifts. For this type of customer, the best way to advertise is in-store marketing. Once he’s in there to buy his gifts, there needs to be a liberal selection of options made available to him—maybe some kind of interactive “people who liked this book also liked…” kind of concept a la amazon.com?
For every book he’s considering, give him some other choices, and maybe he’ll buy more than one. How about a personal book-giving Web site through which he can piggyback onto a site like amazon.com, and every time he says he’s buying a gift for Mom, it aggregates it into his other Mom purchases to better target to him some recommendations? How about integrating some basic calendar features so that the site might e-mail him reminders about upcoming birthdays he might need to buy for (complete with suggestions based on his past purchases)? Lots of opportunity for an innovative entrepreneur to get this customer’s book-buying business!
* * *
Those are just a few of the many, many opportunities out there for publishers today. Stop thinking in terms of “sales of books” as one number; and think instead of combining multiple revenue streams: online free content which can be used as an advertising venue, online subscription-based content such as magazines, databases and such, online e-book content which is impulse-buy affordable and available in multiple formats for different devices, traditional print titles for personal and gift-giving use, and ancillary products such as CD-ROMs or media tie-ins; there is money out there in books, and there is literacy and love of literature out there too. The publishers just need to get in the game and broaden their business models if they want a piece of the action, the same way other industries have evolved over time to do the same thing.
Good article – I’m with you on this one – however, if the publishing industry can’t work it out, they cna suffer and a New Wave of Writers and Publishers can take over. Besides, it is the audience that matters.