The late Edward Rondthaler was a typographist, a simplified spelling champion, and chairman of the American Literacy Council. When he was 102 years old, he recorded this video showing the challenge of properly spelling English. Enjoy.
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In Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly), Joe Wikert (@jwikert), general manager, publisher, & chair of Tools of Change for Publishing (@ToC) (#toccon), asks bookstores, “What business are you really in?” Simply selling books, he says, is too narrow. He challenges sellers to focus on their unique benefits, such as personalized service and community-building.
Despite the sluggish economy of the last few years, some bricks-and-mortar retailers have found ways to grow their business. Apple is a terrific example. Regardless of whether you’re an Apple fan, there’s always something new and interesting to discover in an Apple store. I can’t tell you the last time I felt that way about a bookstore. I’m not talking about eye candy or glitzy merchandising; when you enter an Apple store you know you’re in for a treat.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if customers entering your bookstore had that same feeling? I realize Apple can invest a lot in its store experience because it’s selling higher-priced items, but maybe that means you need to look beyond simply selling $20 or $30 books. I’m not talking about adding stationery and toys, like some bookstores have done over the years. It’s time to think much bigger.
Take a page out of Apple’s playbook and create a genius bar service for customers interested in self-publishing. Establish your location as the place to go for help in navigating the self-publishing waters. Remember, too, that most of the income earned in self-publishing is tied to services, e.g., editing, cover design, proofreading, and not necessarily sales of the finished product. Consider partnering with an established expert in these areas or build your own network of providers. The critical point is to evolve your business into something more than just selling books.
Also see the Forbes (@Forbes) article by Phil Johnson (@philjohnson), "The Man Who Took On Amazon and Saved a Bookstore," about Jeff Mayersohn and Harvard Book Store (@HarvardBooks). And "Inside Amazon's Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes The Customer" by George Anders (@GeorgeAnders).
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you “think bigger.”
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From book patrol (@bookpatrol) and HeraldNet comes this fun photo.
What else would you cover an electrical transformer that sits in front of the Library Place apartments, and is adjacent to the Everett (Washington) Public Library, then with a book sculpture?
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For all the technology we have, it doesn’t seem to be bringing us much happiness, according to a recent survey conducted by research firm Market Probe International and integrated marketing communications agency Euro RSCG Worldwide (@EuroRSCG).
This Digital Life (@prosumer_report) surveyed the opinions of 7,213 people in 19 markets and discovered that
· 55% of respondents believe technology is robbing us of our privacy, while more than half of Millennials worry that a family member or friend will post inappropriate personal information about them online.
· 42% of consumers believe it’s "too soon to tell" whether new technology will have a bad effect on society. 10% already believe the impact is negative.
· 60% say it’s "wrong" for people to share a lot of their personal experiences and feelings online.
· 58% agree people are "losing the ability to engage in civil debate."
· 1 in 3 Millennials say sites such as Facebook and Twitter make them "less satisfied" with their lives.
· 40% of consumers would be happier if they "owned less stuff."
The report says marketers will have to adapt their communications to suit this consumer mood, specifically in “helping people feel a greater sense of control and security.”
"People are looking to replace hyper-consumption and artificiality with a way of living that offers more meaning and more intangible rewards — even as they wish to maintain the modern conveniences upon which they've grown reliant."
See larger image of above Infographic.
Also see JWT Singapore's (@JWT_Worldwide) news release, "Survey Shows Mounting Social Media Obligations Have Become a Stress and a Chore."
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you properly communicate your brand message.
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Simultaneous media use has become deeply embedded in the day-to-day habits of US tablet owners, with more than two-thirds regularly going online via the devices while they watch TV.
A new media trends report, State of the Media Spring 2012 (part 2), from market researcher Nielsen (@NielsenWire), says 45% of people who own devices such as Apple's market-leading iPad "multi-screen" at least once a day, while 69% do so on multiple occasions during the average week.
· 61% say they check their email on their tablet while watching TV and
· 47% access their social media profiles.
· Over one in three (37%) look up information related to the TV program they’re watching on their tablets, while more than 1 in 5 (22%) say they look up coupons or deals related to a TV ad as they watch.
The average American watches nearly 5 hours of video each day, 98% of which they watch on a traditional TV set, according to the Nielsen Cross-Platform Report. Although this ratio is less than it was just a few years ago, and continues to change, the fact remains that Americans are not turning off. They are shifting to new technologies and devices that make it easier for them to watch the video they want, whenever and wherever they want.
According to ABI Research’s (@ABIresearch) new report, Connected Home Devices Market Data, about 21% of US homes, or about 27 million, have an Internet-ready TV, game console, Blu-ray player, or smart set-top box that’s connected (not just owned, but connected) to the Web. By far, a gaming console is the most popular route to the Web — it reaches 80% of connected homes.
American teens are well-known for their consumption of online video content, but they're also among the biggest producers, according to the latest findings from the Pew Research Center’s (@pewresearch) Internet & American Life Project (@pewinternet). The project's latest report, Teens and Online Video, estimates 27% of Internet-using teens (12-17) record and upload video to the Internet.
"One major difference between now and 2006 is that online girls are just as likely these days to upload video as online boys," Pew notes, citing a similar study conducted 6 years ago.
The study also finds that 13% of Internet-using US teens stream live video to others on the Internet, and more than a third (37%) regularly participate in video chats utilizing applications such as Skype, Googletalk, or iChat. Girls are more likely than boys to have such chats.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you communicate your publishing content from screen to screen.
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Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) correspondent Judith Rosen (@Judith2dogs) reports on the conference Unbound: Speculations on the Future of the Book (#unbound) held May 3-4 at MIT.
The symposium, organized by two postdoctoral fellows in Writing and Humanistic Studies at MIT, Amaranth Borsuk (@amaranthborsuk) and Gretchen E. Henderson, lingered most on what forms the book might take.
The answer varied from Christian Bök’s (@christianbok) The Xenotext, an attempt to genetically engineer a bacterium to store a poem in its genome, to Nick Montfort’s computational poem, 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10, a one-line Commodore 64 BASIC program, to Bob Stein’s SocialBook, a post-print publishing platform that allows users to share comments and drawings on books and articles read in Web browsers.
James Reid-Cunningham, associate director for digital programs and preservation at the Boston Athenaeum, a private membership library, was the only speaker to proclaim the book dead, specifically the reference book. “Books that carry data will be dead; the phone book is already dead,” he said, and drew parallels to other “dead” technologies like the daguerreotype. Digitization may be replacing the codex, but one form that Reid-Cunningham thinks may be a future of the book is art books, which are in and of themselves works of art.
In looking at reshaping the book, Gita Manaktala (@sylviamath), editorial director of the MIT Press, the only traditional publisher on the roster, discussed the difficulties faced by scholarly presses. “Our authors live in a wiki world, where knowledge is produced quickly,” she said. Yet publishers have to figure out what content should be preserved. She also discussed the need for alternatives to peer reviews given that today’s authors put up content and solicit comments as they prepare their manuscripts.
Stein suggested that Manaktala use SocialBook, which is currently in beta, and invited her and all 240 attendees to sign up by emailing him at futureofthebook@gmail.com. The idea behind the platform, he explained, is that a book becomes a place where readers and authors can gather. “Google Docs, wikis, they’re great at letting you change the text. They’ve grafted social awkwardly on top of it. For us,” said Stein, “social is not a pizza topping, it’s the cornerstone of reading and writing.”
Also see imprint's (@printmag) "Between Page and Screen," The Institute for the Future of the Book, and Harvard’s History of the Book.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you identify publishing opportunities in this digital age.
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On MediaPost’s (@MediaPost) Engage:GenY, Sharalyn Hartwell (@SharalynHartwel) executive director at Magid, writes, “Millennials [those born in the ‘80s and ‘90s]...aren’t kids anymore. In fact, according to our Millennial Life Stage Segmentation, only one in ten Millennials (11% of Millennials or approximately 10 million) isn’t an official adult (i.e., is under the age of 18). Approximately 13 million, or 15%, are college students and about 12 million, or 14%, are in flux — not working or married, but don’t have kids. The majority of Millennials are ‘grown-ups’ in the way society tends to define them — they are working (36% or 31 million) or parents (24% or 21 million).”
Millennials are no longer the youth population in this country, which means there’s a new generation of youth for marketers to know.
Presenting the Pluralist Generation. The oldest Plural is 14, turning 15 in 2012. The youngest is a newborn.
Plurals are America’s last generation to have a Caucasian majority, and based on immigration projections, they will also be America’s first generation to be pluralistic, or have no majority race. Their own ethnic composition is a catalyst for the overall ethnic transition in our country. In 2019, less than 50% of live births in this country will be Caucasian. In 2042, just 30 years from now, our entire population will be less than 50% Caucasian. Plurals are being raised in the environment of change and, in their 30s and early 40s, they will be the ones managing the transition into a truly pluralistic society.
See the news release, "Magid Generational Strategies Reveals America's Newest Generation."
Actually the name of the next generation is still up for grabs. Reveries.com (@cool_news) says that, along with Pluralist, other suggested identifiers are Generation Wii, iGeneration, Gen Tech, Digital Natives, Net Gen, Multi Gen, Post Gen. You can vote on which one you think it should be.
How will you prepare now for Pluralist consumers of the future? Write your comments below.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you sort through research statistics and what they mean to effectively communicate your brand's message.
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This video ad for The Guardian (@guardian) uses the famous fairy tale of “Three Little Pigs” to paint a 21st century picture of open journalism, imagining how the story might be covered in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion.
In contrast, The New York Times (@nytimes) has created 4 videos that promote the rich experience users get when using its website.
See all The New York Times video ads.
Of the two styles above, which is the most effective? Do they properly reflect each brand message? Does each have viral potential?
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PaidContent’s (@paidContent) Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) reports, “New stats from the Association of American Publishers (@AmericanPublish) show that kids’ and young adult ebook sales grew by triple digits in February, while adult ebook sales appeared to flatten. But the AAP notes that’s partly due to the fact that so many adults are reading YA ebooks like the Hunger Games trilogy.”
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PBS MediaShift’s (@PBSMediaShift) Barbara E. Hernandez (@bhern) explains some alternatives to Amazon’s ebook self-publishing service.
In the ebook market, Amazon.com is the biggest name in the game. But, as criticism mounts — especially from people who believe that Amazon, and specifically, it's KDP Select Program, can hurt rather than help writers — alternatives like Smashwords (@Smashwords & @markcoker) are on the rise.
But can an independent author afford to bypass Amazon, especially when it provides so much exposure to self-published ebooks? So far, the answer isn't a clear one.
Most of Amazon's criticism comes because of the KDP Select program. For most authors at the Kindle Store, books are usually split between two prices — 99 cents and $2.99. At $2.99, Amazon's take is only 30% with 70% going to the author. At $2.98 and below, the author's take is only 35%.
But the KDP program offers more visibility on Amazon if authors agree to give their book away for free for five days during a 90-day period. The author must also sell exclusively at the Kindle store for those 90 days. While the subject is a hot topic on the Kindle boards, many authors are already a part of the program in hopes of getting momentum and their title climbing the Kindle charts.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your content for your brand.
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