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This week I was part of a panel discussion and brainstorming session with members of the Vancouver technology community and WESTAF, the Western States Arts Federation.
Quote: From the About Us: WESTAF is a nonprofit arts service organization dedicated to the creative advancement and preservation of the arts. Based in Denver, Colorado, WESTAF fulfills its mission to strengthen the financial, organizational and policy infrastructure of the arts by providing innovative programs and services to artists and arts organizations in the West and nationwide.
WESTAF is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; the state arts agencies of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; private and corporate foundations; and individuals.
Basically WESTAF is trying to figure out how to better use their existing web properties and technology to support the arts organizations they represent. They have some really interesting tools such as ArtJob Online for job seekers and ArtistsRegister.com. But they also have online tools for helping arts agencies and funding bodies put out electronic calls for submission and online ways to review grant applications and entries.
For privacy reasons I don’t want to post my full presentation notes, but I think some of the basic points are things that all arts organizations and artists could consider. Here’s a summarized version.
Quote: What I notice working with arts agencies and funders is that umbrella arts organizations are good at communicating with their member arts organizations, those organizations are good at communicating and building relationships with the artists they represent, and the artists are good at peer-to-peer networking.
At each level there is a certain amount of promotion of artists and services to the public. But arts organizations are seeing a decrease in audience attendance, in book sales, in season tickets, in arts funding in schoolsówhatever it is.
So somewhere along the line weíre missing the key step, which is getting artists or arts orgs networking not just with other artists but with a fan base (so finding fans, creating a fan base, engaging with them, giving fans tools for word-of-mouth or buzz marketing–basically increasing public awareness and enhancing the value of the arts in the mind of the public).
Sometimes it is easy to see how individual artists can use the web to do this type of social networking, but it’s more difficult to figure out what you as an organization can do.
The challenge is to get arts funders, arts agencies, etc. to understand the importance of online tools and services and how they have an impact on the end result, which is selling more ideas, content, lifestyle.
Itís not about the physical product: books, artwork, season tickets. You sell the physical product by building communities of interest through networked effects. [There was some discussion about this, which also came up in my SFU presentation this week. More on that later.]
The first thing to understand is that the ways people use the web today is different than the ways they were using it five years ago. Remember also the web is only 15 years old. A lot of sites we talk about [Flickr, Digg, delicious–sites launched in the last 1-5 years] might not seem relevant at first glance, but understanding the nature of the web is going to help drive the changes you make to your existing products and to help make decisions about what you want to do next.
Look at the websites that are successful or have a commanding presence: Flickr, delicious, Gmail, Google Adsense, eBay, Wikipedia, BitTorrent; all these sites have things in common: good content, user participation, engagement, a viral effect.
The objective is to get organizations or artists to look at their digital assets and find ways
1) to make content PARTICIPATORY, both in content creation and content consumption.
2) to use the Web to ENGAGE with their target market.
3) And to create a VIRAL effect. Whatever they/you are doing online needs to be cool enough or interesting enough or important enough for people to pass on to their friends or colleagues (most likely in the form of links).
So how do make you (as an arts org) make your existing content participatory? What might that look like? [Here we had a discussion based on some suggestions particular to WESTAF.]
I was really thrilled to be a part of this panel. I enjoy understanding industries that are related to my own and looking a the overall strategy. It was mentally very stimulating and I thank Darren Barefoot for inviting me along.
I’ve recently been part of a number of conversations with authors about how they can successfully promote their books. These aren’t self-published books, these are books published by traditional publishing companies, all of which have marketing departments.
Over at Buzz, Balls and Hype, M.J. Rose has a fantastic article about exactly how to do this.
Read: Get thee to a marketing/pr meeting!
Working in a publishing house and having an author as a partner has given me an interesting perspective on the industry. From the author’s point of view I see that there is usually little communication between editor or publicist and author about what to expect in terms of the process. From the publisher’s point of view I see that there is very little time to walk someone through the whole process–you’re busy actually getting the interviews and sending the books out for review. Both side are in need of help from each other.
What’ I like about the Buzz, Balls and Hype article is that it explains the process nicely and gives sound tips on ways an author can approach his/her publisher.
Here are the points that stand out for me:
1) 4-6 months before your book comes out ask for a marketing/PR meeting
The timing is going to be dependent on your particular publisher and the type of book you have coming out. But basically before it hits the stores, before it goes out for review, make sure you have a meeting about what’s going to happen.
2)Key talking points to cover in that meeting:
– Do you want to spend some of your own money promoting the book and if yes how much?
– How many ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) are going out (if any)?
– Is there a tour planned?
– Are there any online or off line advertising/promotional plans?
– What would the publisher like you (the author) to do for the book? What don’t they want you to do?
– Is there any incentive program that makes sense?
– If appropriate is there a reading group guide?
– Will you have/who is your publicist? What time frame will he/she be working on your book? What kind of reviews/press is the publisher going after?
– Do they have other authors with similar books coming out at the same time? Would they be interested in piggy backing efforts?
– Do they have a problem with you setting up your own speaking engagements, do they/how do they want to know about them?
The article offers excellent background information on why these are key questions to ask and the purpose behind asking them.
If you work in publishing or are an author or potential author, have a read through this article.
Article: Get thee to a marketing/pr meeting!
What do you think? Valuable info?
Yesterday I gave an hour-long presentation to Simon Fraser University students in the summer book publishing workshop. I had an hour to talk about online marketing. No sweat, right? I can’t remember who it was now, but I heard about a presenter who started by saying “oh my god, I don’t have enough time to tell you everything.” That was exactly how I felt. I’ll post my session notes later, but in the meantime here are some web resources I thought I should note somewhere for future reference.
Web Theory
————
Harness the power of the web. How business models need to change to adapt to online markets. If you read anything, read this. The full book is free online.
http://www.cluetrain.com/
What Is Web 2.0? Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Social Signal’s Tech Tips
http://www.socialsignal.com/techtips
Web Stats & Measuring Success
————————–
Google Analytics. Great web analytics software. Sign up for a free invitation code.
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Work Industries blog on web strategy. Post on How to Read Webstats
http://www.iworkindustries.com/index.php/site/comments/a-quick-guide-to-reading-webstats/
The four general questions that you should ask yourself to measure your online ad or websiteís return on investment.
http://chiefmarketer.com/crm_loop/online-success-040406/
Search Engine Advertising
———————-
Google Adwords. Run a search engine advertising campaign.
http://adwords.google.com/
Blogs
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Search engine for blogs. See what people are searching for, talking about online.
http://www.technorati.com/
Free blog software & hosting:
http://www.blogger.com
http://www.livejournal.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.xanga.com/Default.aspx?
Paid blog software/hosting (most have a free option as well):
http://wordpress.com/
http://www.pmachine.com/ee/pricing/
http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/
http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/
This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but feel free to add your own links in the comment section. The more the merrier.
Working in the publishing industry means that people like to talk to me about books. I, of course, like to talk about books so this is never really a problem. But this summer I have been stumped twice when asked about good novels. I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction lately and I suppose I haven’t been paying attention to what good novels people are reading this summer.
If you’ve got a good novel on the go, let me know what it is.
Here’s the list of what I’ve recommended so far:
Kids
Beverly Billingsly Borrows a Book
Bruce Hale’s Chet Gecko series
Terry Griggs’ Cat’s Eye Corner trilogy
Fiction for Adults
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Time in Between
Daniel Isn’t Talking
Here’s the novel I started today. So far I think it is going to be a very good book.
The Garneau Block by Todd Babiak
Yesterday I visited my favourite Canadian bookstore, McNally Robinson. First it is a beautiful store. We had lunch in the cafe then perused the selections. I noticed a table display for Cormorant Books, a small Canadian publisher, and another display for McClelland & Stewart’s 100 Year Celebration, and a Penguin Books display. Last year in London James and I saw the 70 years of Penguin book design display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. At the time I couldn’t carry around anything extra so I didn’t buy the book on the exhibit, but there it was yesterday in McNally so I’m now the owner of a copy of Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 by Phil Baines. It’s a history of the jacket design of Penguin paperbacks. The display also had a cool section of 70 titles in the Pocket Penguin series. I bought a copy of Otherwise Pandemonium by Nick Hornby. It’s a really cute little book. About 60 pages. $4.00.
What McNally did well was create an atmosphere for browsing. I didn’t intend to buy either of these books. I actually went in to buy Water for Elephants, which is a Harper Collins book I’ve been looking for. I didn’t end up buying it because I read the first page and wasn’t terribly impressed. The displays of the other books though and the face out selections let me rediscover one book I’d been interested in before and newly discover a series of books that I think is really cool.
Speaking of browsing I have some comments on Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail and what he’s missing about the in-store browsing experience, even if the selection is smaller than an online retailer. And, I have a side thought on why it’s important for book publishers to look not just at what types of books are being published and promoted in stores but where people are actually browsing in store. But, that will have to wait for another day.
On July 13, I read a story on a couple of blogs about the inaccuracies of a recent Nielsen study on podcasts, then Wednesday (13 unlucky days later) I saw that CanWest papers, including The Vancouver Sun, had published the original study numbers and a recap of a Washington Post article. Seems unfortunate that the Washington Post didn’t do their research to see that the numbers were faulty, seems even more unfortunate that CanWest then passed off bogus info as news.
Here’s the press release posted on MarketWatch.com: “Nielsen//NetRatings announced today that 6.6 percent of the U.S. adult online population, or 9.2 million Web users, have recently downloaded an audio podcast. 4.0 percent, or 5.6 million Web users, have recently downloaded a video podcast. These figures put the podcasting population on a par with those who publish blogs, 4.8 percent, and online daters, 3.9 percent.”
The Washington Post requires a subscription but here’s their headline from July 23 (10 days after it was public knowledge online that the numbers were inaccurate): “As Podcasts Spread, Advertisers Sniff Money” by Kim Hart, F07 (Post, 07/23/2006): “The podcast is heading for the mainstream. A report released by Nielsen Analytics last week found that podcasts — online broadcasts downloaded from the Internet for playback on portable devices — are …”
Here’s the story I read announcing that the numbers were inaccurate.
Quote: From Frank Barnako’s blog: “Nielsen “podcast” survey not only about podcasts. Just had a conversation with Michael Lanz, the analyst on the podcast survey by Nielsen/NetRatings whose findings were released yesterday. He said that while the firm’s news release said more than 9 million audio and 5 million ‘podcasts’ were downloaded, well — maybe they weren’t all podcasts.”
Seems that Nielsen didn’t clearly define podcast, which means that music downloads were included in the 9 million figure.
I love that with blogs, blog writers are smarter because blog readers keep them on the right path.
From SFU, here’s an announcement about two lectures open to the public:
August 9
ENDING THE TWO SOLITUDES: A Quebecois Publisher’s Ideas for Cross-Cultural Publishing in Canada
A rare opportunity for English language publishers, academics , writers and educators to find out what they should know to approach the French-language market.
7 to 9 pm
Room 1800 SFU Vancouver
Fee $10.00
http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/pubworks/two-solitudes.htm
August 10
PRINT ON DEMAND COMES OF AGE
Convergence of cutting-edge technology, new markets, global distribution, and mass publicity have opened the door for real change in book publishing. This lecture will start with a discussion of print on demand’s latest technological advances and move quickly to the implications of global infrastructure changes. Particular focus will be given to† publishing applications-everything from the works of first-time authors to corporate and regional publishing.
7:30 to 9:30 pm
Room 1800, SFU Vancouver
Fee: $10.00
http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/pubworks/print-on-demand.htm
Summer reading to me screams Harry Potter but this summer, without a new book to read, I’m left reading all the Harry Potter fan sites, which I actually really like. There’s all sorts of great plot speculations and preview photos of the films and fan fiction to tie me over.
One of the things I’m looking forward to reading about is Lumos, the Harry Potter conference taking place in Las Vegas July 27 – 30, 2006.
I know about Lumos from Heidi at http://www.FictionAlley.org
There are lots of great sites but I want to highlight FictionAlley.org for a second.
In 2005, a teenage fan fiction writer Katie O’Brien lost her battle with leukemia. At the time FAWC, the non-profit educational arm of FictionAlley.org created three scholarships for young, talented creators, in her memory.
The winners of the 2006-2007 Katie O’Brien Memorial scholarship are:
* Ashley Yutzy, of the Maryland Institute College of Art
* Michelle A., who will be attending Florida State University this fall
* Rachel W. of Colorado’s Naropa University
Each received an award of $500.
I’m mentioning them now because examples of their works will be on display in the FictionAlley.org booth at Lumos.
You can also see some of the work online:
Ashley’s portfolio
A selection from Michelle’s winning submission for the Community Service scholarship.
A selection from Rachel’s winning submission for the Writing scholarship
So if you’re looking for a Harry Potter fix, check out http://www.fictionalley.org