Attract more readers

If the book market is a zero sum game, then any advance in ebooks means a decline in print books. The different formats are competing for larger slices of a static pie. (Although there is a small group of people who buy the same title in print and as an ebook.)

If, on the other hand, it’s possible to make books more relevant to a larger audience — maybe in different situations or for different readers — you can make a bigger pie.

That’s what this article is about.

It reminds me of something I recently read about younger readers and books. It’s not that they’re reading less, it’s that they’re reading in smaller chunks. I don’t know if that’s true, but it stands to reason that “readers” is not some inflexible demographic that is always X% of the population, and always consuming content the same way.

It’s not as if people are disinterested in content, but the how and the when and the why is changing all the time. People may be shifting away from 300-page novels to 75-page novellas they can read on their phones, and maybe one day people will be reading one-a-day serials they get by email every morning. Many of our famous novels started out as serials. The point is that publishing shouldn’t be wed to a particular style or format. Publishers need to be flexible and change in response to the market.

Is social media worth your time?

I’ve been a social media skeptic from the start, and when people started responding to “what’s the ROI of social media?” with “that’s the wrong question,” my skepticism burned even hotter. I think companies have wasted a lot of time and effort trying to be hip with the mean girls, trying to cuddle up to socially inept jerks with keyboards, to appeal to the lonely hearts or to navigate the assorted closet weirdos that run loose in social media.

Social media is a place for fandoms and strange causes. It’s a place where news stories get distorted and issues are prejudged and demagogued. It’s not a serious place.

So I chuckled when Mollie Hemingway spoke of comments that were “posted on Twitter where the social media mob fed their hankering for constant outrage.”

Outrage is like crack on social media. Calm, considered voices are boring and therefore don’t get as much traction.

Companies need to protect their brand, and that includes monitoring the wackos on Twitter. There are also some smart ways to use social media for customer service, and I’m sure there are other niche uses here and there. But generally speaking I think it’s a silly distraction.

Magazine articles don’t go on a playlist

Nextissue is an attempt to treat magazines the way Spotify treats music. You sign up for a subscription and you get access to any magazine you want. They’ve just raised $50 million.

It’s an interesting idea and I think it will have some limited success from tire kickers, but then it will fade away because it fundamentally misunderstands what a magazine is, and it has no clear benefit.

A magazine is not just its content. It’s not a collection of articles, pictures and ads. It’s a peculiar sort of package, both in its content and in its presentation. It’s also a lifestyle choice. It’s a way to brand yourself. A magazine is a form of self and group identity.

You don’t subscribe to Field and Stream just because you want to know how to get a trophy buck. You want to think of yourself — and you want others to think of you — as that kind of guy. You want to feel a part of that lifestyle. You want the people who visit your house to see Field and Stream on your coffee table and know a little more about you.

The idea that consumers will grab GQ this month, then Entertainment Weekly, then People, then Better Homes and Gardens …. It seems like a flawed premise to me. A reader might browse those things in the barber shop while waiting for a chair, but this undifferentiated mass of magazines is not a compelling sale.

If you want to sell Better Homes and Gardens there’s a solid pitch to be made. Have a nicer home! We’ll show you how, and all the great stuff we’ll show you is more than worth the paltry subscription price. Plus you get all these premiums!

What is Nextissue selling? You can read … uh … all this stuff … and, uh … whatever it is that you like you can … well … you can read it on a tablet, like no one else in the world is doing right now. (Despite the hype, tablet sales of magazines are awful.)

There’s no clear benefit to an identifiable group of people who want a discrete something — except for a group of people that simply doesn’t exist, that is, people who want to read an undifferentiated mass of whatever on a tablet.

People simply aren’t getting on board with the digital magazine thing — even with titles they like that have a clear audience and a clear benefit. The idea that it’s possible to water down the benefit, target an unclear demographic and sell even more digital magazines is not a business model I would bet on.

We’ll see, but remember — you heard it here first.