Digital subscribers to periodical publications often believe they should get a discount because they're saving the publisher the cost of printing and postage. While that's can be true in some cases, in others the reverse is true. Often publishers makes more money on the print version — even with the cost of printing and mailing …
Continue reading ‘Savings on printing and postage aren’t what subscribers think they are’ »
On a personal level, I think GDPR is probably a good idea. To some degree, the government should intervene when people’s privacy is being invaded. This topic has become big news in the U.S. recently with the revelations about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and all that nonsense. People who can remember things so far back that …
I'm not a fan of Facebook, either personally or professionally. Personally, it's like an addiction to something that makes me sad. Research allegedly shows that Facebook makes you sad because you compare your mundane, humdrum life to the polished, carefully vetted images of everyone else's exciting, glamorous, adventurous life. I don't think that's it with …
Apple is buying Texture, the digital magazine distributor, says the headline. Okay. But the subhead says, “A message from Apple to big publishers: We like you.” No, no and no. When will publishers ever learn? I suppose the message is “we like you” in the sense of “we like you for dinner.” It certainly doesn’t …
Continue reading ‘Of course Apple is buying Texture. Also, when will publishers learn?’ »
Sure, sure, I know. They didn’t make the transition to digital soon enough, and that’s a lesson for everybody in publishing! I am so tired of hearing that kind of “analysis.” There isn’t one transition facing publishers and publishing. There are several different transitions all going on at the same time, and different parts of …
Continue reading ‘The death of Time, Inc., and the predictable crap we’ll all hear about it’ »
FANG — that’s Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google — are (is?) performing a huge about face on the internet, and nobody’s doing anything about it. Few people are even noticing. I always thought the internet was meant to be an open platform that anybody could access and use. It was supposed to democratize things, and …
Recently a colleague on the SIPA listserv asked about some of the simple subscription management plugins that work with WordPress. The question took me back to the days when I was first learning how incredibly complicated circulation systems can get, which also reminded me of the early days of iPad. When Apple first got into …
Continue reading ‘On the virtue of simple fulfillment systems’ »
Let’s say I have a service on the Fair Labor Standards Act. It covers the whole Act, but the subscribers are always calling and asking the editors questions about chapter 4, which covers whether an employee is exempt or non-exempt. The service sells for $400. Subscribers and potential subscribers are always telling the editors it’s …
Continue reading ‘Eat your own, before somebody else does’ »
Sorry publishers. Nothing you do will matter when the hegemons disintermediate us. Sorry for the $5 word, but it works in this situation. Thomas Chaffee, Chief Executive Officer at ePublishing, used it in his presentation at BIMS last week, and it's exactly the right word. Chaffee reviewed a lot of the ways our data gets …
Good publishers spend a lot of time and money to hire intelligent, professional editors, writers, proof readers, fact checkers, graphic designers, user interface experts, etc. etc., and we strive to make a fantastic product that’s clearly a sharp step above the nonsense people blurp out on blogs and tweets and Facebook posts. Then we call …
Continue reading ‘Stop calling your expensive, professional material “content”’ »