It turns out that consumers who are physically touched in stores judge products more harshly, leave more quickly, and are less willing to spend than those who aren’t, especially if they’re touched by a man.
Implication: Although retailers try to drive as many customers to their stores as possible, overcrowding may drive them away as well.
Be sure to bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard designed specifically for professionals in the book trade.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Ann Patchett | ||||
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Novelist Ann Patchett discusses on The Colbert Report the importance of brick-and-mortar bookstores and explains what prompted her to open Parnassus Books (@ParnassusBooks1) in Nashville.
In Fast Company (@FastCompany), NYU journalism professor Adam L. Penenberg (@penenberg) interviews self-published author Charles Orlando, who’s written two volumes of The Problem With Women… Is Men. Orlando has sold upwards of 15,000 copies of his work as a Kindle, iPad, and iPhone ebook, as well as a traditional paperback, generating around $130,000 since its release in November 2008.
Which self-publishing service did you choose?
BookSurge Publishing (now CreateSpace, @CreateSpace). BookSurge was partnered with Amazon.com, and once I was published, my book was automatically included on Amazon.com (this was 2007/2008, before there was a real ebook publishing effort). It was print-on-demand with really good quality, so I didn't need to hold an inventory and I didn't need to be part of the backend stuff: shipping, fulfillment, returns, chargebacks, etc. Plus, I would get all the benefit of being grouped with best-selling authors, receive reviews, and more. They had multiple levels of service – editing, marketing, public relations, custom covers, and much more – but I elected to go with a flexible offering (allowing me a custom interior, custom cover, and no more than 10 interior illustrations).
What did all this cost?
Editor: $500 (flat fee)
BookSurge publishing package: $900 (now priced lower)
Cover design and all artwork: $750
25 copies (for review): Free.
Total: $2,150
He goes on to explain how he marketed his book.
I started a blog: three posts a week. Simultaneously, I spun up my Facebook and Twitter (@charlesjorlando) efforts and started publishing my blog posts to my Facebook Page. But I could see that readers had to leave Facebook or Twitter to interact with what I had written. As a test, I just wrote on Facebook, using the Notes application on my Page. And... voila... increased engagement and interactivity; more comments, more sharing on individuals' Walls. I took down my blog at the end of 2009 and in an effort to meet my audience where they "lived" I transitioned all my efforts to Facebook (and some on Twitter). My Facebook Fan Page was now a few hundred strong.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you with your publishing, marketing, and branding needs.
Be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially take advantage of the list of self-publishers in the Publishers tab.
Articles in Harvard Business Review (@HarvardBiz) focus on the reinvention of retail that’s going on right now. “The Future of Shopping” explains that when the dot-com bubble burst 10 years ago, the ensuing collapse wiped out half of all online retailers. Today, e-commerce is well established and much digital retailing is now highly profitable.
As it evolves, digital retailing is quickly morphing into something so different that it requires a new name: omnichannel retailing. The name reflects the fact that retailers will be able to interact with customers through countless channels — websites, physical stores, kiosks, direct mail and catalogs, call centers, social media, mobile devices, gaming consoles, televisions, networked appliances, home services, and more.
If traditional retailers hope to survive, they must embrace omnichannel retailing and also transform the one big feature internet retailers lack — stores — from a liability into an asset. They must turn shopping into an entertaining, exciting, and emotionally engaging experience by skillfully blending the physical with the digital. They must also hire new kinds of talent, move away from outdated measures of success, and become adept at rapid test-and-learn methodologies.
A successful omnichannel strategy should not only guarantee a retailer’s survival — no small matter in today’s environment — but also deliver a revolution in customers’ expectations and experiences.
Read this in full (registration required). See a PDF version here and here.
In “Retail Isn’t Broken. Stores Are,” J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson is interviewed:
When Johnson joined Apple, in 2000, as the senior vice president for retail, conventional wisdom held that a computer maker couldn’t sell computers. Johnson promptly tossed out the retailing rule book and built the Apple Store from scratch. “The Apple Store succeeded not because we tweaked the traditional model,” Johnson says. “We reimagined everything.” Today, Apple stores are the highest performing stores in the history of retailing.
In November, Johnson took the reins as CEO of the venerable J.C. Penney department store. Times are tough for many retailers, but Johnson, characteristically, sees the chance to reinvent the department store as a great opportunity. He also understands the challenges ahead. “A store has got to be much more than a place to acquire merchandise,” he says. “It’s got to help people enrich their lives.”
Johnson discusses his vision of the future of retail and shares insights about innovation, leadership, and why he trusts his gut.
Read this in full (registration is required). See a PDF version.
“Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do” says
Shoppers once relied on familiar salespeople to help them find exactly what they wanted—and sometimes to suggest additional items they hadn’t even thought of. But today’s distracted consumers, bombarded with information and options, often struggle to find products or services that meet their needs.
Advances in information technology, data gathering, and analytics are making it possible to deliver something like the personal advice of yesterday’s sales staffs. Using increasingly granular customer data, businesses are starting to create highly customized offers that steer shoppers to the “right” merchandise — at the right moment, at the right price, and in the right channel.
But few companies can do this well. The article demonstrates how retailers can hone their “next best offer” (NBO) capability by breaking the problem into 4 steps: defining objectives, gathering data (about your customers, your products, and the purchase context), analyzing and executing, and learning and evolving. Citing successful strategies in companies such as Tesco, Zappos, Microsoft, and Walmart, they provide a framework for nailing the NBO.
Read this in full (registration required). See a PDF version.
Also see HBR’s portal The Future of Retail.
To stay current with news about publishing, consumers, branding, retailing, and more, bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
How do people discover books in the digital age? Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) reports that, according to a survey presented at the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) in New York last month, nearly half of readers discover new books through the recommendations of family and friends, and nearly a third discover them at bookstores.
· 49% - Family and friends’ recommendations
· 30% - Bookstore staff recommendations
· 24% - Online and print advertising
How will readers discover, buy, and read new books as e-reader and tablet ownership increase and traditional books sales channels are challenged?
A new service that wants to help in this regard is Small Demons (@smalldemons). It takes all of the meaningful data from all favorite books and puts it in one place. Small Demons collects and catalogs the music, movies, people, and objects mentioned in books and makes those details searchable, creating a universe of book details, or as the service calls it, a storyverse.
Book Baby (@BookBaby) says Small Demons CEO Valla Vakili was so intrigued by the description of Marseilles in Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Chaos that he replaced the Paris leg of his trip with Marseilles, an experience so inspiring that the concept of Small Demons was born.
In a recent interview with GalleyCat (@GalleyCat), Small Demons VP of content and community Richard Nash explained: “If you are an author, we are going to create verified author pages. You’re going to be able to add biographical information, information about your own books and other features. You will also get access to the editing tools that we are using to fix the computer’s mistakes. We know algorithms can’t get everything right and even when they get something right, they can’t necessarily provide the nuance that a human being can.”
Nash continued: “A computer can tell us how many times a song appears in a book. But it can’t tell us that it is the song that the couple dances to at the wedding reception or the song the jilted lover plays after being dumped. It can’t tell you the emotional resonance of it. So we are going to be relying on librarians and authors and gifted amateurs to come in and help us fix and add and weight and evaluate all the data we are generating. Individual authors will have that ability over an extended period of time.”
Other services that aids in discovering new books are Rethink Books (@RethinkBooks) and its FirstChapters (@first_chapters) platform, and Findings (@findings), a tool for sharing clips while using Amazon Kindle.
Other articles about the challenge of finding books:
Enhanced Editions (@enhancededition), “On Book Discoverability, Discovery, and Good Marketing.”
Austin American Statesman (@statesman), “‘Discoverability’ key in publishing industry's transformation.”
AARdvark (@digitaar), “The Key to Saving Publishing and New Writers — Branding the Publisher to the Consumer.”
GalleyCat (@GalleyCat), “Amazon's Book Search Visualized: Check out this nifty, homemade book recommendation engine.”
The Digital Shift (@ShiftTheDigital), "Libraries Still an Important Discovery Source for Kids' Books, Says Study."
Also see our previous blogposts, “BookRiff (@BookRiff): A Marketplace for Curators” and "How Ebook Buyers Discover Books."
Along these same lines, you’ll want to read StumbleUpon’s (@PaidDiscovery) “Creating an Infectious Brand” and “Recapping the 5 Keys to Brand Discovery.”
Stay current with publishing news when you bookmark and use daily our (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard., especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.
Since 2002, the United States has lost roughly 500 independent bookstores — nearly 1 out of 5 — due in many instances to the dominance of the Barnes & Noble (@BNBuzz) bookstore chain. Now, however, it’s B&N that’s fighting for survival.
Julie Bosman (@juliebosman), book publishing reporter for The New York Times (@nytimesbooks), writes a behind-the-scenes look at Barnes & Noble, a company that started in 1873 by Charles Barnes in Wheaton, IL.
In March 2009, an eternity ago in Silicon Valley, a small team of engineers here was in a big hurry to rethink the future of books. Not the paper-and-ink books that have been around since the days of Gutenberg, the ones that the doomsayers proclaim — with glee or dread — will go the way of vinyl records.
No, the engineers were instead fixated on the forces that are upending the way books are published, sold, bought, and read: ebooks and e-readers. Working in secret, behind an unmarked door in a former bread bakery, they rushed to build a device that might capture the imagination of readers and maybe even save the book industry.
They had six months to do it.
Running this sprint was, of all companies, Barnes & Noble, the giant that helped put so many independent booksellers out of business and that now finds itself locked in the fight of its life. What its engineers dreamed up was the Nook (@nookBN), a relative e-reader latecomer that has nonetheless become the great e-hope of Barnes & Noble and, in fact, of many in the book business.
Several iterations later, the Nook and, by extension, Barnes & Noble, at times seem the only things standing between traditional book publishers and oblivion.
The article goes on to say B&N plans to unveil another e-reader soon.
At its labs in Silicon Valley last week, engineers were putting final touches on their 5th e-reading device, a product that executives said would be released sometime this spring.
Read this in full. Also on CNBC.com (@CNBC).
Bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) free online dashboard for booklovers.
Central Connecticut State University (@CCSUToday) released its annual list of most literate major cities (population of 250,000 and above) Jan. 25 with Washington, DC #1 (the second year in a row). The study focuses on 6 key indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources. CCSU’s president Jack Miller says, “From this data we can better perceive the extent and quality of the long-term literacy essential to individual economic success, civic participation, and the quality of life in a community and a nation.”
Here are CCSU’s ranking of the top 20 most literate cities:
1. Washington, DC
2. Seattle, WA
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Atlanta, GA
5. Boston, MA
6. Pittsburgh, PA
7. Cincinnati, OH
8. St. Louis, MO
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Denver, CO
11. Portland, OR
12. St. Paul, MN
13. Cleveland, OH
14. Kansas City, MO
15. Oakland, CA
16. Raleigh, NC
17. New Orleans, LA
18. Baltimore, MD
19. Honolulu CDP, HI
20. Virginia Beach, VA
See the overall rankings of 75 cities.
To prioritize cities according to booksellers, 3 variables were used to determine a total score and consequent ranking:
The following are the top 10 cities for bookstores based on the above 3 criteria:
1. Seattle, WA
2. Portland, OR
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Cincinnati, OH
5. New Orleans, LA
6. St. Paul, MN
7. Pittsburgh, PA
8. St. Louis, MO
9. Denver, CO
10. Albuquerque, NM
To prioritize cities according to libraries, 4 variables were indexed to determine a total score and consequent ranking:
These numbers were then divided by the city population in order to calculate ratios of library services and resources available to the population.
The following are the top 10 cities for libraries based on the above 4 criteria:
1. Cleveland, OH
2. St. Louis, MO
3. Pittsburgh, PA
4. Seattle, WA
5. Cincinnati, OH
6. Toledo, OH
7. Fort Wayne, IN
8. Kansas City, MO
9. Columbus, OH
10. Lincoln, NE
Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, created especially for marketing and publishing professionals.
Shelf Awareness’ (@ShelfAwareness) editor-in-chief John Mutter (@JohnMutter) reports on the Verso Digital survey of consumer purchasing behavior that was presented at the ABA’s (@ABCGroupatABA & @IndieBoundMeg) Winter Institute 7 (#Wi7) Jan. 18-20. He says the survey “reinforced the sense among indies that there are plenty of opportunities for bricks-and-mortar bookstores in the post-Borders, digital era.”
Verso's (@VersoDigital) director of business development and president of Books & Books Westhampton Beach (@bookswhb), Westhampton Beach, NY, Jack McKeown (@bookateur), emphasized that many in the business like to use Darwinian metaphors for what’s happening in the book world, implying that the growth of ebooks and ebook readers is a zero-sum game pitting print against digital and that the book business will follow the course of the music world, where most bricks-and-mortar music retailers have vanished.
But the findings of the Verso survey suggest a different model, McKeown said, one of symbiosis mirroring the situation of species who “depend on each other for survivability.”
Among the findings:
· Bookstores remain an important place for readers to discover new books
· Indies' market share continues to lag behind indies' popularity
· Most Borders customers were casual shoppers and are still "up for grabs"
· Readers of all kinds split purchases between a variety of retailers, including indies, chains, big boxes and online
· E-reader device owners intend to buy almost as many printed books as ebooks
· Ebook purchases are increasingly across a range of categories, more and more resembling sales for printed books, and are less focused on certain categories such as mysteries and romance
· Some readers are quite open to buying some kind of indie-branded e-reader device
· Half of all readers don’t want to use any kind of e-reader and there is no sign of a “killer” device — like the iPod in music — that would break through this resistance
· Avid readers — those who purchase 10 or more books a year — tend to be older, female, wealthier, and better educated — and represent 30.2% of the US adult population, about 70 million people. “They are the market that's a driver for our industry,” McKeown said. These avid readers buy books for a variety of reasons, including entertainment/relaxation (32%), education and self-improvement (22%) and for gifts (14%).
· Readers find out about books mostly through personal recommendations (49.2%), bookstore staff recommendations (30.8%), advertising (24.4%), search engine searches (21.6%) and book reviews (18.9%). Much less important are online algorithms (16%), blogs (12.1%), and social networks (11.8%). These results “reaffirm the power and necessity of bricks-and-mortar stores and traditional marketing efforts,” McKeown commented.
· The preferred places to shop for books are at independent bookstores (23%), chain bookstores (22%), online (21.1%), and big box stores (11.7%).
· Book buyers buy their books online (49%), at chain bookstores (42.7%), local indies (36%) and big box retailers (24.3%). Avid readers tend to buy even more online (65.5%) although avid readers buy almost as often at indies (47.5%) as at chain bookstores (51.4%).
See the Survey of Book-Buying Behavior slides.
See the Wi7 educational handouts.
Read ABA’s coverage of Wi7 here & here.
Another survey, conducted by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (@new_rules) in partnership with several business groups including the ABA, finds that independent businesses appear to be benefitting from increased public interest in supporting locally-owned retail enterprises. ABA CEO Oren Teicher says "a growing shop local trend is now a business reality."
Contact us (@smrsault) to help you produce, package, and market your books in this fast changing digital world.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, the online dashboard created especially for publishing and marketing professionals.
Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) senior news editor Calvin Reid (@calreid) says, “Despite the constant economic pressures on a book publishing industry in the midst of change, the Digital Book World conference (#dbw12) [that ended yesterday in New York City] offered a snap shot of a range of industry positions and best practices as it comes to grips with digital delivery.... the book industry is indeed reinventing itself on a daily basis.”
There are more electronic reading devices, some 60 million e-readers and tablets, in the hands of consumer and there are more ways to buy books, read them, and talk about them, than ever before. “Books today are elastic and dynamic,” said Hyperion president Ellen Archer.
Reid also reports
The transition to digitization continues in book publishing, an industry that is both susceptible to digital disruption, but also positioned to benefit tremendously from it, according to Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey (@jmcquivey) who kicked off this year's Digital Book World conference. That said, a survey conducted by Forrester in collaboration with Digital Book World found that while 82% of publishers were optimistic about digital, the number was down from 89% last year. Indeed only 28% of those thought their own company would be stronger in the future, down from 51% last year.
The decline has a lot to do with a realization of hard work ahead for publishers to adapt to the new digital environment, according to McQuivey.
Other stats:
· 25 million people in the US own an e-reader
· 34 million people own tablets
· 8 million homes have at least 2 tablets.
· 75% of publishers have an executive level person responsible for digital
· 63% of publishers report that digital skills are formally integrated into all departments
· 69% of publishers expect to increase digital staffiing in 2012
· 22% expect overall company staffing to go down in 2012.
· 75% of the publishers surveyed produce apps, but 51% said they cost too much to produce; only 19% believe apps will change the future of books and 15% say apps represent significant revenue for them.
PW’s news editor Gabe Habash (@gabehabash) writes
Perhaps the most eye-opening facet of a study on the children's ebook market discussed at a Digital Book World panel was how great the potential for ebook reading in children really is:
· 27% of 7-12-year-olds own their own computer
· 25% own a cell phone
· 7% own a reading device.
· teens have tripled their reading rate of ebooks in the last year.
Ron Hogan (@RonHogan) reports that Shelf Awareness’ (@ShelfAwareness) editor-in-chief John Mutter (@JohnMutter) moderated a panel on “The Bookstore Renaissance” where it was stressed that bookstores must stay relevant. Roxanne Coady of R.J. Julia Booksellers (Madison, Conn.) (@rjjulia) talked about the recently launched JustTheRightBook.com (@JTRBook), which offers subscribers a monthly book selection based on a personal review of their reading tastes — “the opposite of the wisdom of crowds,” she quipped.
Coady elaborated on how the site’s “human algorithm” drew on one of their biggest strengths as booksellers: “We know how to put the right book in the right hands,” she said, “and we are early discoverers.” She noted that 67% of the visitors to the site who took their quiz wound up buying or borrowing one of the recommended titles (though not always from R.J. Julia).
Also see DBW conference coverage by paidContent (@paidContent), especially its article about e-singles (and its “guide to e-singles”).
Read Porter Anderson’s (@Porter_Anderson) conference wrap-up on the Jane Friedman site (@JaneFriedman).
See GalleyCat's (@galleycat) coverage.
See DBW’s (@DigiBookWorld) own coverage of the show at “Video: Seen and Heard at Digital Book World.”
And see conference photos.
Stay current with news about the publishing world by bookmarking Somersault’s (@smrsault) SomersaultNOW online dashboard.
An article by Nick DeSantis (@njdesantis) on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s (@chronicle) technology blog Wired Campus (@wiredcampus) says, “Despite the promise that digital textbooks can lead to huge cost savings for students, a new study at Daytona State College has found that many who tried e-textbooks saved only 1 dollar, compared with their counterparts who purchased traditional printed material.”
The study, conducted over 4 semesters, compared 4 different means of textbook distribution: traditional print purchase, print rental, e-textbook rental, and e-textbook rental with an e-reader device. It found that e-textbooks still face several hurdles as universities mull the switch to a digital textbook distribution model.
Read this in full. Also see “A Study of Four Textbook Distribution Models” reported by Educause Quarterly (@educause).
Another article you’ll want to read is USA TODAY’s (@USATODAY & @USATODAYtech) “Technology, costs, lack of appeal slow e-textbook adoption” by tech reporter Roger Yu (@RogerYu_USAT).
With their promise of ubiquity, convenience, and perhaps affordability, e-textbooks have arrived in fits and starts throughout college campuses. And publishers and book resellers are spending millions wooing students to their online stores and e-reader platforms as mobile technology improves the readability of the material on devices such as tablet computers. Silicon Valley start-ups, such as Inkling (@inkling) and Kno (@GoodtoKNO), are also aggressively reinventing textbooks with interactive graphics, videos and social-media features.
Despite emerging attempts at innovation, the industry has been slowed by clunky technology, the lasting appeal of print books, skeptical students who scour online for cheaper alternatives, and customer confusion stemming from too many me-too e-textbook platforms that have failed to stand out.
Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you develop your ebook strategy.
And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard for marketing and publishing professionals.