Author: Monique (Page 41 of 125)

It’s been a trying week but I have enjoyed the following:

“Adversity is just change that we haven’t adapted ourselves to yet.” —Aimee Mullins
I’m reading Nicolas Carr’s The Shallows about how the internet is changing our brains.

“The secret of life…is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” —Paulo Coelho, from The Alchemist
I’m cheering for James’ grandpa who is recovering from a stroke.

“Each moment of our life, we either invoke or destroy our dreams.” —Stuart Wilde
Always good to remind yourself of this one.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” —Antoine De Saint Exupery
Important thought as I consider how and what to teach in my new SFU course this fall: Online Marketing for Publishers.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” —Margaret Mead
Hope is light.

“I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.” —Virginia Woolf
I will not compare myself to others. The grass on this side is lovely, thank you.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou
Be a good buddy.

“Don’t hire a dog, then bark yourself” —David Ogilvy
Man, was he right.

“Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.” —Martha Graham
Yes, this is my own interpretive dance.

“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” —Eleanor Roosevelt
Amen.

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.” –Diane Ackerman
Going out on a school night!

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.” —J. K. Rowling
Courage is a valuable asset. (And all my friends are lovely, thank you for being so.)

Thank you Dan and Ingrid for introducing me to Ork Posters. Love it.

One of the great things about having creative friends is pimping their stuff.

Rachael Ashe is a photographer, mixed-media collage, and altered book artist. She does amazing things to old books and this summer her work is displayed at the Pacific National Exhibition (the PNE) in Vancouver in the Container Art show.

Container Art is an ambling exhibition. The containers travel the world and are then filled with beauty at every stop.

So don’t just ride the rollercoaster, check out cutting edge contemporary art from Vancouverites.

Rachael Ashe’s container includes amazing book art that floats along the side and back walls. I particularly love the accompanying paper flowers that hang from the ceiling.

Her series is called Forgotten Knowledge and uses a set of twenty-five Funk & Wagnall’s encyclopedias combined with found objects from nature.

Visit Rachael Ashe’s Container Art from August 21st to September 6th at the PNE

Can’t get to the PNE, that’s ok. Just purchase her stuff on Etsy. Ya! Do it, Rachael’s art is cool. I own two altered books already.

Etsy.com/shop/rashe

Watch the YouTube video of the Forbidden Journey ride. It’s really dark so I’m not sure if it will make sense to those of your who haven’t been on the ride. The ride is a 3D or 4D adventure. You fly through Hogwarts grounds and the Quidditch pitch, then a dragon chases you, you dip down into the dungeons, and end in the Great Hall.

This calmer video shows the castle and the path you wind through the castle.

SFU Summer Publishing Workshop on Digital Strategies featured Peter Armstrong talking about how a book is like a start-up and why a lean publishing model is the way to go. Here’s his presentation.

Jenna shares her knowledge of Google and the Future of Books at the SFU Digital Strategies, Digital Publishing workshop.

Now, explaining the mysteries of Google’s

* Partner Program
* Library Project
* Google Editions

Google has the engineering quality and the data quantity to make them the leader today. Having more books means more content to index, more knowledge and more possible results. Plus, more pages to serve up with advertising, therefore more possible revenue for Google.

Google Book Search is possible because the scanned book data is integrated into general search results.

Partner Program targets publishers or rights owners (writers).
* Materials are indexed (from digital files from books that are digitized, printed books are scanned)
* Publisher decides what books are displayed and what percentage of the book can be displayed
* Material is browse only
* Buying options are available and the publisher can set the priority order of the buy links (i.e., publisher site listed first, then Amazon or other)
* Revenue stream is text ads

Google Book Settlement
* Started as the library project. They scanned entire library collections.
* Included books published up to 5 January 2009, includes orphan works, public domain works
* Google said “we’ll scan, you get a copy and we’ll get a copy too”
* Google will sell full-text access, which is why this is under review in the courts, read here “opt-out class action”
* Revenue streams: text ads, individual consumer purchase, institutional subscription fees
* Revenue share with the Book Rights Registry (which doesn’t exist right now)

Book Rights Registry
* Cost to run will be deducted from the publishers’ 60% revenue share
* In the partner program, there’s the publisher-Google relationship. In the settlement, the program requires you to pay for this additional level.
* In the partner program you can also see the insights (traffic, sales). Here, that info goes to the registry.
* The settlement has explicit rules that might attempt to overrule the existing author/publisher contract

The Settlement
* Because it’s opt-out, Google can now scan all the books it comes across regardless of whether the publisher/rights holder ignores Google or if rights holders have died or gone out of business.
* The settlement is the “other” category, it covers whatever is not covered by other agreements
* The settlement is not yet approved
* Books published after Jan 2009 are not part of the settlement

For Google, books are a giant database to be mined for content pages to index.

The deep mining of this data set means Google’s optical recognition software learns as it goes, making it the best.

Google Editions
* Not launched yet, concrete details
* Digital bookstore, not just discoverability (Partner Program), this is about sales
* Books are included by request
* Agency model pricing: 37-63% split
* This is the extension of the Partner Program. Users discover the books through Google Book Search and then buy via Google Editions
* Google will sell ebooks in whatever format and whatever geographic region where rights are held

The settlement is the default agreement and applies to eligible books (pre-Jan 2009) whenever another Google agreement isn’t already in place.

Google Editions may be combined with the Partner Program.

Regardless of the agreement, books will show up in Google Book Search.

Hey Publishers
* strengthen your own presence online
* optimize your site for search
* if you haven’t opted out of the settlement then claim all your books before 31 March 2011 (if you don’t claim your books, you get no cash payments)
* scan your own books (Google doesn’t give you a copy)

What now?
Full Google Books Settlement is available but don’t start at the beginning. Skip to Appendix M or N for the highlights.

(Joy’s insight: Google is creating incentives for rights holders to figure out how to sell your content more effectively.)

Today I’m speaking at the SFU Summer Publishing Workshop on Digital Strategies.

Speaking now …

Christoph Kapp, Manager, Library & Digital Services, Special Sales, Custom Solutions at Login Canada on markets and strategies for digital publishing.

Why focus on libraries?

Example of a university library annual budget: $14 million
Majority goes to journals.
Libraries are places of discovery, connection, sharing.

$500 million a year is spent on content.

Libraries are in transition. As materials move online, libraries are no longer about paper books. This has initiated changes in the library environment and across Canada.

Librarians are not …

Librarians are experts.
* Highly Trained
* And experience in training others
* Customer focused
* Matchmakers
* Quality Seekers
* Value Seekers
* Results oriented (usage is important, not just making content available)
* Sustainability oriented: Not just eco, but sustainable usage goals, ROI
* Strategic partners

Digital Content trends in Canadian libraries

Content of corporate libraries is not quite 100% but many are providing 90-100% digital vs. printed materials for their members. Their organizations are digitally publishing their reports and studies, etc. Corporate librarians are therefore well ahead of others bringing content online.

University libraries are catching up. They have a larger collection to oversee, which has slowed them down.

K-12 is the slowest to adopt digital. Many of the relevant teaching materials are not digital. Plus there are issues of availability/accessibility to funding for digital materials. Books and basketballs are easier to pitch for than funding for databases.

Religious and private schools are slightly ahead.

Hospitals were slow to uptake but the spike is significant.
* Digital packages for ebooks are more readily available.
* Consolidation in the health care sector means that digital is a cost effective measure.

(Monique’s aside: I wonder what this means about Kindle and other mobile reading devices, or even content sent via the tv sets available at bedside. Devices walk but I wonder about materials distributed as a tv signal…)

Old infrastructure of hospitals (lovely brick walls, cables vs. air signals) also affects the possibilities in this market.

Challenges
Money is not the challenge. They have the budget. Proving the demand for your content is the challenge.

The typical challenges fall into these categories.

Old-school digital: Can you get investment in new tools? If the current system is “good enough”, this is a customer issue that you have to leap.

There are so many digital options: The customer can be overwhelmed.

There are types and standards: ebooks, databases, DVD/CD/Audio, OEM/systems/gadgets, integrated and custom/bundles, file standards (pdf, xml, OeB, ePub)

There are platforms: aggregators, publishers, libraries

Aggregators are an option because publishers didn’t build their own platforms (where/how customers get access). So the aggregators built the platform and bought licenses from the publishers.

(Monique’s aside: Yet another thing publishers didn’t do for themselves, making their business/revenue dependent on a third party. Hello Google. Hello Amazon.)

There are pricing models: single download, subscription (concurrence, unlimited), perpetual (access forever, by paying a higher amount, you have access forever), local-load (started at Stanford, this is where UofT has invested in own infrastructure, they own and house and control that content), other

(Monique’s aside: how do you “control” and price your content? Local-load is an interesting spin because it’s the closest thing to “ownership” of the print book. Custom course packs look really interesting in this model.)

Scholar’s portal is owned by 22 Ontario universities and they can buy and access all the materials in this system. So 1 sale to the portal, with access to all. This creates interesting legal issues. The contracts define the usage.

(Christoph’s aside: Precedent setting Master license is coming soon with schedules for reference, trade, rate, and for textbook use. So far, it’s been 1 or nothing licensing. This is a totally different business model. It’s not open access, it’s 1 use at 1 time. When it’s not material adopted for courses, then it’s more open. This provides the content but manages the demand vs. the supply.)

Then there are periods: one-time, annual, multi-year, mix

(Christoph’s aside: California matters in publishing because it’s a good model to look at for Canadian publishing. Studying what happens in California is indicative of what might work in Canada. Similar population make-up.)

Content Is King. Or is it?

In libraries, “Content Is King” is re-written to “Usage Is King.” Librarians need to prove that the content is being used.

(Monique’s aside: Librarians want the People’s Prince, not the Inaccessible King.)

Collect, measure, analyze the usage = Deci$ion to buy.

Once again, this great info is from the SFU Digital Strategy session by Christoph Kapp, Manager, Library & Digital Services, Special Sales, Custom Solutions at Login Canada speaking on markets and strategies for digital publishing.

Now beautiful library photos: