“And don’t let anyone fool you with other numbers …”

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“… because it’s not true.”

So says Steve Lacy in “Our Audience Wants Print,” Says Steve Lacy, CEO of Meredith. The Breakdown: “2% Digital, 98% Still in Print.”

The “digital revolution” — when everyone will be getting their subscriptions in iPads and other tablets — is always “tomorrow.” And it looks to continue that way for some time.

Don’t listen to the breathless predictions. Don’t be fooled by “everybody’s moving to digital” talk. At some point facts actually matter, and at this time the facts paint a generally dismal picture of digital subscriptions — except in some niches.

A history of “the death of print”

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Here is a rather long-winded but interesting article on various predictions of the death of print, and how things look at the present time. Spoiler — print isn’t dead, nor is it likely to die any time soon.

Paper Versus Pixel — Technology: The science of reading shows that print and digital experiences are complementary.

Digital subscriptions, while growing smartly, still represent only a tiny slice of the market, and a lot of magazine readers don’t seem eager to switch to e-versions. A survey of owners of iPads and other tablet computers, conducted earlier this year, found that three-quarters of them still prefer to read magazines on paper.

As I’ve said before, we’re several years into this so-called revolution and print still shows no signs of dying.

I’m sure my “print is not dead” talk can make me sound like a Luddite. I’m not. I love technology as much as the next guy.

But there’s a point at which facts actually matter. Despite years of breathless talk about the death of print and how everybody is going to be reading on electronic devices, it simply isn’t so.

Yes, there’s been an increase in readership on electronic devices. The Kindle is a wonderful thing. I love to clip web articles to Evernote so I can read them on my phone later.

We were probably mistaken to think of words on screens as substitutes for words on paper. They seem to be different things, suited to different kinds of reading and providing different sorts of aesthetic and intellectual experiences.

E-editions have their own niche in the world. So does print. And it will remain that way for a long time.

Read the whole article I link above. There’s some interesting stuff toward the end about how our brains process words on paper differently than words on a screen.

Death of newspapers does not mean the death of print publishing

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Let’s start with the facts.

1. The newspaper industry is dying (except for local papers!).

2. Smart phones, e-Readers and tablets are selling like crazy.

3. More and more web traffic is on mobile devices.

4. Sales of e-Books are rising dramatically.

5. Publishers are all talking about the transition to digital.

Given all that, you can understand why people would assume that print is dying and publishers should hurry up and rush to digital.

It’s not that clear. Let’s examine why newspapers are dying.

First, why did we have all these papers to begin with? Why was there a New York Times, a Washington Post, a Chicago Tribune, etc., all basically reporting on the same stuff?

A few reasons. The paper had to be printed, then delivered on trucks to distribution areas where kids on bicycles could bring it to your home. A Washington paper could hardly be delivered to Chicago, or vice versa.

Also, the papers had local news, local advertisements, local job postings and local classified ads.

Think how much of that has changed. Job postings are on Monster.com. Classified ads are on Craigslist. I can get the Chicago Tribune online faster than any truck and kid on a bicycle could hope to deliver it.

There is simply no reason to have several national newspapers any more. That’s why they’re dying.

Now think — how much of that applies to magazines or newsletters? Almost none of it. Most notably, magazines and newsletters don’t rely on classified ads for a big share of their revenue, and it really doesn’t matter if your magazine is printed in New York or Topeka. Local delivery is irrelevant.

The simple fact of the matter is that people aren’t moving to digital magazines. The figures for digital sales of magazines are dreadful.

Why? Why do lots of people buy eBooks but not many at all buy eMagazines or eNewsletters?

I can’t say that I know for sure, but a book is mostly just words. It doesn’t matter too much whether it’s on paper or not. However, even at that, many people remain devoted to “real” books.

Magazines and newsletters continue to have strong sales in print.

Will that change? Maybe. It will almost certainly change at least a little. But there’s no evidence to suggest that magazines or newsletters will follow the same calamitous path as newspapers.

Should magazine and newsletter publishers work on digital publishing? Of course they should. But it has to be done pragmatically, after examining what’s really going on — and without being fooled by the “print is dead” nonsense we’ve been hearing for decades.

The naked digital emperor

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Will the hype and the predictions are the breathless pursuit of shiny new objects ever catch up with reality? Specifically, that not nearly enough people want to read magazines on digital devices.

See Why Magazine iPad Subscription Numbers Are Worse Than You Thought

The numbers continue to be tepid for the leaders and dreadful for most everybody else.

When confronted with the starry-eyed “digital is the future” stuff, magazine execs need to be very skeptical.

Update: Somewhat along these lines, also see Future shuts iPad magazine tech. after seven months: what now for tablet publishing?

Mobile rules for publishers — 1 to 5

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In a previous post — Mobile Esentials, my 4 rules — I outlined four general topics publishers should consider as they develop a mobile strategy. In this post I’ll review the first five of my 10 Rules of Thumb.

1. Be careful with generic stats — People will try to talk you into spending lots of money on mobile by appealing to stats like sales of mobile devices vs. desktop computers, or total web traffic on mobile devices, or time spent on mobile devices. There is no question that digital habits are changing, but these things don’t necessarily affect your business.

Remember what these stats really mean. They include people who look up actress names on their iPad while they’re on the couch in front of the television, or people who walk into traffic while watching a cat video. This kind of usage is probably not an opportunity for your business.

2. Pay close attention to your own behavior on various devices — What do you do on your mobile devices? Think about that from time to time. Do you sort your email on your cell phone, but deal with the important stuff on your desktop? Do you use your tablet to check the weather (because it loads really fast), or read recipes and listen to Pandora while cooking, but you’d never fill out a form or do anything productive on it?

What is the benefit of each device to each task, and why?

3. Don’t confuse anecdotes with data — There’s a well-known story about the New York socialite who said Nixon couldn’t have won the election because none of her friends voted for him. You’ll run into the same problem with mobile.

Learn from your own behavior and listen to what others do, but don’t confuse that with actual data. Learn to distinguish the qualitative and the quantitative, and don’t allow your business to be ruled by your individual quirks, or the habits of the people in your office.

4. Get your own stats — You may have a huge need to optimize your emails for mobile, but your website might be doing just fine. Take a hard look at usage statistics. Divide your web stats by device, then …

  • Look at time of day and the day of the week to see if your users are in the office or at home.
  • Look at time spent on the site and average page views to see how engaged they are with your content.
  • Look at your bounce rates.

Don’t get snookered by generic stats. See what your users are doing.

5. Go mobile in stages — “Going mobile” doesn’t mean you have to get everything perfect and then do a huge, comprehensive re-launch. There are lots of different things to do, and you can do then in pieces.

You probably don’t have one website. Even if you only have one domain, you might have several different functions going on. You have articles, forms, e-commerce and customer care pages. You have free content and paid content. And on the other side of the server you have content creation and curation.

Consider each of these things and do a cost/benefit analysis. Which one is going to give you the most return?

In the next post I’ll review the last five rules of thumb.

This series of three posts includes …

Mobile rules for publishers – 6 to 10

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This is the third and final post in a series on how publishers should approach mobile development.

In the first post — Mobile Essentials, my 4 rules — I outlined four general topics publishers should consider as they develop a mobile strategy. In the second — Mobile Rules for Publishers, 1 to 5 — I reviewed the first five rules. In this post I’ll review the last five rules.

6. Learn how and when your customers use your content — There’s a mad dash to put everything on mobile — often driven by the people who want to charge you lots of money to help you with the task.

You have to ask why. Ask what’s “mobile” about the content or function you are considering. Is it something that’s even useful on a mobile device?

There are clear benefits to getting some content onto mobile devices. One of my co-presenters in Mobile essentials: making the business case mentioned a company that created text alerts for farmers. Of course many farmers spend their days outside, not in front of a computer, and a lot of them don’t have smart phones. A fancy iPad app isn’t going to help them at all, but a text-only alert, or an SMS message, could be of huge benefit.

7. Distinguish mobile web and apps — The lines between these two are starting to blur (especially with hybrid apps), but there are still important differences.

Briefly, an app is a program that a user downloads and installs on his device, while a mobile website is accessed through the device’s web browser. The app can offer additional functionality, like geo location, a better user interface, and offline storage.

But it can come with a price. You have to pay the app store, and sometimes they have onerous terms that mess with your business model — especially if you are a subscription publisher.

I don’t want to get into this too deeply here, but this is an issue you should study carefully.

8. Distinguish tablet and phone-sized screens — “Mobile” can be an unfortunate term because people might associate it with “mobile phone.” A laptop computer is a mobile device. So is a tablet. So is a smart phone. So is a stupid phone. And now we have Google glasses, and soon we’ll have cool interfaces in our cars.

It may be more helpful to think of screen size and functionality. Personally, I love the convenience of writing a short message with an on-screen keyboard, but I would never consider doing anything serious with one of those things. I prefer a real keyboard and a mouse.

Another thing — remember that many programs (like WordPress or Drupal) have mobile plug-ins that may be able to save you lots of time and money.

9. Don’t listen to the geniuses — Remember the paperless office? The PDA? The Segway? I’m still waiting for my flying car.

I recently heard a keynote speech that said the iPad was the most transformative invention in the last 100 years. Uh … more than the digital computer itself? Or the TV?

A lot of what you hear is ridiculous hype. Fire up your B.S. detector whenever you listen to somebody talk about mobile.

10. Remember where you are earning your revenue — Don’t get distracted by things that don’t contribute substantially to the bottom line. Five years from now I’m pretty certain that publishers are going to be laughing (or crying) about the money they wasted on social media experts. If they’d invested that money in fixing their renewal series, they’d have been far better off.

Will an investment in mobile pay off for your company, with your audience and your business model?

This series of three posts includes …

Mobile Essentials — my four rules

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I recently participated in the SIIA webinar Mobile Essentials: Making the Business Case.

In my portion I discussed 4 topic areas to consider, and 10 rules of thumb. In this post I’ll review the 4 topics.

They are content delivery, advertising, branding and sales.

Content Delivery — consider how the consumer users your content. Does he want your material while traveling, or in the field, or on a tractor? Deliver the content when and where it’s needed, in a way that can be used, and use device features to enhance the convenience of the content.

Of course if your audience is working in an office on desktop computers, you might not need to worry so much about mobile. Don’t allow the cool kids to talk you into a big mobile program if your audience doesn’t care.

Advertising — Mobile gives you opportunities to reach new audiences, make deals with advertisers, and sometimes take advantage of higher CPMs. When you’ve got a wave, surf!

Branding — Some people think that by getting into the app store they’ll get exposure to all those millions of people who are downloading angry birds. Not really. Rather, there’s a problem with discovery in the app store — especially the Apple store, which has lousy search.

You may not get great benefits from being in the app store, but you may lose credibility if you’re not in there. It’s almost like going to an industry conference. It’s hard to decide what you get out of it, but if your company doesn’t make an appearance, people will wonder what has happened to you.

Also, some devices give you access to a different demographic. For example, there’s a certain demographic that uses Flipboard. If that demographic appeals to you, getting your content on that platform may help you reach them. Unfortunately, different platforms often limit your ability to monetize your content, so … you have to look at it from several different angles.

Sales — Getting your content onto different devices and platforms may give you up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Some (very few) magazines are having success with “all access” up-sells. You can get print for one price, or you can add “everywhere” access for more money.

OTOH, you might just waste lots of development money building 12 different flavors of your content on devices that will be passe in two years. (Remember the Palm Pilot?)

Next, I’ll go over 10 Rules of Thumb for Publishers as they consider their mobile strategy.

This series of three posts includes …

Mr. Bezos, I have a book for you

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Offer #1 — It’s available on iPhone, iPad, Android phone and tablet, and Kindle. We’ll have a Nook edition soon. It’s in full color, has lots of great graphics, and is designed to be a very immersive experience, taking full advantage of the way people actually use their devices. You’ll love it. It’s only $20. Wanna buy it?

That, Mr. Bezos, is the way media geniuses think these days. They’re so taken with the latest shiny new object that they’ve lost all their sense.

Offer #2 — This easy to read book explores 25 innovative strategies for media companies in the 21st century. It will help you think creatively about content and revenue in a changing world. If you don’t get five million-dollar ideas from this book we’ll gladly refund the $20 purchase price.

That might actually interest you because it focuses on a need you have right now. Note that it says nothing about format or delivery method — and more importantly, note that you didn’t care. It could be hand-written in crayon on paper towels, but if it delivers on its promise it’s well worth the $20. (You can always scan it into your iPhone.)

The point being, don’t pay much attention to the media geniuses. Don’t listen to the keynote speakers at their conferences. Don’t read their forward-thinking ideas. They’ve mostly forgotten the most basic thing about commerce — that you have to provide something that people need.

Focus on what the customer wants and needs, and let all the technological whirrs and shiny spinning things come later.

“But is anybody making money at it” is the question that destroys Shiny New Object syndrome

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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a conversation that goes roughly like this.

He: “You should move your successful print something to this shiny new digital something.”

Me: “Is anybody making money doing that?”

He: “I’m not sure.”

Then when you do the research you realize the answer is “No.”

Publishers continue to be distracted by Shiny Things and forget the very basics of publishing, which is that your job is to provide something of value to a discreet audience.

“Something of value” means it has to solve a problem or scratch an itch, while “discreet audience” means a group of people you can target that has the need you’re trying to solve.

If I have a need, the delivery method is far less important than the fact that you’re meeting my need.

“Let’s move this thing onto this other thing because it’s cool” is baby talk, and needs to be recognized as such.

Obviously there is a digital revolution going on. Of course there are a lot of new opportunities on digital devices.

That does not mean that everything can or should go digital.

A cell phone app that tracks where you’ve been jogging, or tells you where there’s a good draft porter to be found in walking distance, is a glorious thing. It provides something of value to a discreet audience.

But moving something to a smart phone or a tablet does not necessarily make it better or more convenient, and it does not magically create an audience.

I run into this from magazine people the most.

“You should be on all the digital newsstands.”

Really now. I know it’s what all the cool kids are doing, but what is the chance of success from doing that?

If I had $100K to spend, which is more likely to give me a better return — (1) a really intensive effort to change my print content so that it meets the actual needs of my existing subscribers, or (2) making what I have do cool stuff on an iPad?

It may well be that print will be gone X years from now. (X is almost certainly ten times larger than you think it is.) But it seems clear to me that investing in digital publishing is almost certainly going to yield lower dividends than investing in a better renewal series, or any of ten other publishing fundamentals.