Life as a beta geek

I’ve just got back from the Booksellers Association annual conference in Brighton. I promised several people that I would blog my notes from the conference, which follow. Digital publishing was one of the main strands of the conference, and there were some excellent speakers on the programme.

The views expressed below are those of the individual speakers — however any errors of transcription are, naturally, entirely my own, and I would be pleased to hear from other conference attendees, or indeed speakers, in the comments.

It’s important also to note that my notes from the conference concentrate on digital and online — I’ve taken a magpie approach and just blogged the shiny bits which interested me. Much more was said at the conference, on a range of topics, and if you want to get some other points of view, I would commend to you The Bookseller’s blog pieces on the first and second day of the conference, and Kieron Smith’s fine job of liveblogging it.

Steve Bohme, Research Director, BML

• Book sales over the Internet grew 26% from 2006 to 2007 (about the same rate of growth as supermarkets).
• The rate of growth from 2003 to 2007 was 166% (against 115% growth for supermarkets).
• Sales of general reference products are suffering from information being accessed online.
• Internet sales are somewhat skewed to backlist: 16% of backlist is bought online and 11% of frontlist.
• Harry Potter sales by channel show growth of online:

Year	1999	2001	2003	200	2007
Online	5%	3%	12%	12%	17%
Chain Booksellers	60%	40%	33%	28%	26%

Michelle Harrison, Henley Centre HeadlightVision

• Strong social trend towards interaction and getting together.
• We want to get together becase increasingly we’re living apart:
  • Only 12% of families are two parents, two children.
  • By 2010, 34% of households will be Dual Income No Kids (DINKs).
  • Single-person households are the fastest growing category.
• Commuting is on the rise — the average Londoner spends 370 hours a year travelling.
• The UK works longer hours than any other country in Europe, and is becoming a twenty-four hour society.
• In this context, people feel connected online — 37% of 15-24s feel part of a virtual community.
• However, this isn’t solely an online phenomenen. There’s an increasing blurring of the line between virtual and physical, with online tools and services facilitating interaction on personal, local and community levels — e.g. using GPS and mobile to tag locations, photos and other content and allow sharing of experiences.
• Increasing trend toward “we time” rather than “me time”.
• Personalisation is more important than mass production — a mix CD (or playlist) is seen as better than a CD from HMV.
• This trend to personalisation is also seen in the current boom in photo books, blurb.com etc.
• Key demographic groups — boomers and millennials — are comfortable online: 48% of boomers with Internet access regularly buy products online.
• Millennials — the digital natives — are even more at home online. Their comfort with online and ability to multitask — the mean number of activities performed concurrently whilst online by 16-24s is four — mean that patterns of reading/media consumption will change.
• Marketing to these groups requires different strategies. Marketing to boomers is about inclusivity. Marketing to millennials is about creating engaging stories. However, the common denominator between both groups is giving them experiences.
• Huge boom in social experience — 59% of adult Internet users have attended a live music event in the last three years.
• Massive numbers of festivals — around arts, books, music etc.
• Retail space is also social space, and bookshops were early adopters in this area — however, they have perhaps sat still and been overtaken by other social spaces.

Luke Johnson, Chairman, Borders UK.

• Online is a healthy, competitive market, with room for competition.
• The entertainment industry is only just beginning to face the challenges of that online world.
• Borders is launching a new transactional website, which will also create online communities around local stores.
• Borders may venture into print-on-demand and facilitating self-publishing.
• Online does however lack quality of experience and serendipity.
• On e-books, Johnson agrees with John Lanchester that physical books are in extraordinarily robust health.
• Borders will sell the iRex Iliad e-book reader. However, Johnson does not believe that it bears comparison with the iPod’s effect on music, owing to issues around expense, design, usability and formats.
• Impossible to predict trends over the medium term — five to ten year plans best left to totalitarian rulers.
• Bill Gates believes that Blu-Ray will be the last physical media format, before the world moves entirely to digital delivery. True for much of media, but not, Johnson believes, for books.

Ian Hudson, Deputy Chief Executive, The Random House Group and President of the Publishers Association.

• We all have the ability to influence the digital future, but need to focus on what we can do.
• The advent of the e-book is the biggest single change for the industry since the printing press.
• Offers huge advantages, both in terms of giving consumers the choice of when, where and how they consume books, and in terms of making books more dynamic.
• Also offers opportunity for expanded range, and for booksellers and others to build enhanced relationships with consumers.
• 5-10 year time frame for e-books to become significant part of market.
• Books will not necessarily follow the music industry model — can be different.
• Printed books remain one of the most emotionally attached media.
• Many of the roles traditionally associated with publishers remain vital in the digital world.
• Core bookselling principles also apply to selling in the digital world.
• Major threats:
  • Fear: some authors and agents are reluctant to grant rights, and some publishers and booksellers are adopting a wait and see approach.
  • Piracy: in the absence of legitimate digital content, systematic piracy and peer to peer file sharing will thrive.
  • Pricing: if e-books are underpriced or given away free, we risk undermining our core proposition. Hudson saw this as the major threat.
  • Erosion of territoriality: UK publishers must be hugely vigilant against cheap US e-books. Swift action against transgressors will be paramount.
  • Interoperability: the range of formats is confusing for consumers. The industry should move towards one common format for e-books, and one common DRM scheme. Without achieving this, the only other route to interoperability will be DRM-free files, which should be avoided.
• Opportunities:
  • To enhance and extend range, look at additional content, sales by chapter etc.
  • Digital originals — looking at the success in Japan of novels written for mobile telephone.
  • Books serialised in digital format.
  • Mashups: e.g. themed compilations.
  • Evolving books updated on the fly.
  • New income streams: ads, sponsorship, subscription, pay per view.
  • New products and new channels should attract new readers.
  • Booksellers who think digitally will represent digital product alongside physical books: e.g. Dymocks in Australia with in-store kiosks offering digital product, with service duplicated on website.
• Fundamental questions:
  • Can our industry recognise and address challenges?
  • Can those affected by fear or waiting to see what happens overcome their
    fear and seize the opportunity?
  • Can the industry transfer its skills and creativity to new media?

Meg Pickard, Head of Communities and User Experience, guardian.co.uk.

• Guardian.co.uk has the largest online reach of any UK newspaper.
• Significant international reach.
• Guardian has to keep innovating and challenging its readers.
• Models:
  • At first, Publisher > Content > User
  • This model is authoritative, passive - a “lean back” experience.
  • Then, Publisher > Content <> User
  • This model is a bit more “lean forward”.
  • Now the model is, Publisher <> Content <> User <> User… <> Publisher
• The notion used to be that content is king, but now it is context.
• There’s a continuum of user participation in media: Consumption > Interaction > Curation > Creation.
• Users are increasingly curators of their own experience, via RSS, bricolage approach to news etc.
• User generated content still requires a good editor — though that editor may now be a group or community rather than an individual.
• We should think about what we publish as the start of a journey/conversation.

Genevieve Shore, Global Digital Director, Penguin.

• Changes in media: music industry sat on its heels and lost 50% of its size in ten years. Likewise, television didn’t foresee on-demand. Meanwhile, gaming has overtaken all other media — e.g. xbox Live attracting 1m visitors per day over the launch weekend for Grand Theft Auto 4.
• Imagine a world where 15% of sales are digital (getting to this point took the music business only three years).
• Myth: new media have replaced reading.
  • The question isn’t whether children want to read, but whether we as an industry are relevant to them.
• Myth: conventional reading and the bookshop are dying.
  • Yes, internet and downloads are growing, but still face obstacles.
  • Shelfari (1m users), Good Reads (20m reviews), LibraryThing — more people are talking/connecting about books than ever before.
• Myth: all content will be free, as users won’t pay, will steal, and will file share.
  • Yet our sales continue to grow.
  • Consumers will pay if they feel that they have value for money — however, don’t set prices too low before we’ve even started.
  • People will pay for customisation/personalisation.
  • People will pay for immediacy.
• 3 billion mobile phones in the world — as market for new devices slows, content will become important to device manufacturers and represents an opportunity for publishers.
• Moving toward a micro- rather than macro-economy.

Part two of my notes will follow, as and when I recover the will to live.